Staff Reporter :
The Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) will provide legal assistance free of cost to the Editors’ Council if they file any writ petition with the High Court challenging the newly approved Digital Security Act. Advocate Zainul Abedin, President of the SCBA, said this in a press briefing held on the Supreme Court premises on Tuesday. The briefing was organized regarding Digital Security Act.
In the briefing, Advocate Zainul Abedin said, “We demand immediate abolition of Sections 8, 21, 25, 28, 29, 31, 32, 43 and 53 of the Digital Security Act in the interest of the country, democracy, press freedom and constitutional rights of people.”
“Not only the journalist society, people of all classes, including the lawyers, fell discomfort at the Digital Security Act. So, We demand immediate abolition of all the repressive sections of the Digital Security Act in the interest of the country, democracy, press freedom and constitutional rights of people,” SCBA President said.
“The controversial sections of the Digital Security Act are severer than Section 57 of the Act. In the new law, the law enforcers have been empowered more and it scrapped the peoples’ Constitutional rights given by the Articles 39(1) and 39(2). So we support seven points demand of the Editors’ Council regarding the Act,” he also said.
Bar Secretary Barrister A M Mahbub Uddin Khokan and other leaders of the SCBA were present on the occasion.
Editors’ Council on Monday demanded amendments to nine sections of the newly enacted Digital Security Act, which the council feared to be misused to gag the media.
The Council made this demand from a human chain held in front of the Jatiya Press Club under the banner of Sampadak Parishad (Editors’ Council), an association of newspaper editors in Bangladesh.
