With a protracted lockdown in force to contain the Covid-19 pandemic, the government has gone to great lengths to reach out and provide succor in every possible way to Bangladesh’s embattled workforce, especially the daily wage earners in the informal and semi-formal sectors.
Amidst the nation’s united fight against the pandemic, troubling news of a section of dishonest public functionaries and grassroots public representatives’ stealing food aid meant for the poor has surfaced.
In all seriousness and promptness, the government acted upon these incidents by taking into cognizance the news reports of such relief stealing, published and broadcast in media outlets.
Mindful of the potential dangers of a looming food crisis in a post-Covid world, our prime minister has on numerous occasions rightly emphasized on enhancing food production and ensuring its timely and effective distribution.
In “Democracy as Freedom,” Nobel laureate Amartya Sen famously asserts that famines do not occur in democracies: “No famine has ever taken place in the history of the world in a functioning democracy,” he writes.
And in the case of today’s Bangladesh, as elsewhere in the world, a free press projecting the wrong-doings of a small segment of the authorities is only promoting the very cause of sound democracy.
In this process, it is only expected that there will be a good deal of criticisms in the media. Indeed some part might even be hasty or unjustified as all men make mistakes, newsmen too.
But we have to always remember what Thomas Jefferson had to say: “No government ought to be without censors; and where the press is free no one ever will.”
While government always boasts of providing an environment congenial to free press – somehow that enabling environment is missing in action. A renewed spate of cases against journalists, particularly at grassroots level, and putting them behind bars upon arrest and before they have been proven guilty, does not promote the cause of democracy.
In less than a week’s time, as many as five journalists have been sent to jail immediately upon arrest in cases filed under the controversial Digital Security Act (DSA) and infamous Section 54.
Eight weeks after his going “missing” from Dhaka, Shafiqul Islam Kajol, editor of a fortnightly and a photo-journalist of formidable repute, re-emerged.
The police claim to have “found” him near one of the country’s international borders, much to the disbelief of his family, friends, and peers.
But to our shock no sooner had a court granted him bail then he was shown arrested under Section 54 and sent to jail.
The day before Kajol “re-appeared,” three Narsingdi journalists -- Dainik Grameen Darpan news editor Ramjan Ali Pramanik, its staff correspondent Shanta Banik, and online news portal Narsingdi Pratidin publisher and editor Shaon Khondoker Shahin -- ended up in jail for having published the news of a 50-year-old CNG driver’s sudden death on April 29, after being accosted by police near Ghorashal Police Outpost for having breached lockdown rules.
Relatives of the dead CNG driver, Md Abdul Mannan, accused the police of having caused his death. This was reported by the three journalists. Local police filed a case against them under DSA accusing them of publishing “a false and motivated report.”
The police’s primary probe claimed to have found the cause of driver’s death to be “heart attack,” and a court in Narsingdi obligingly sent the three journalists to jail.
And a couple of days later, an editor of a Sunamganj newspaper -- Haorancholer Kotha -- who also works for a national private television channel, was sent to jail again in a case filed under DSA, allegedly in connection with a post in one of his social media handles.
In this case, a union-level leader of a political party filed the case against the journalist Mahtab Uddin Talukdar, accusing him of tarnishing the image of a lawmaker.
Concern over DSA
Back in September 2018, when the government enacted the DSA (Digital Security Act) many voiced concern over the new law.
There were good reasons for wariness of the DSA, ostensibly meant for fighting cyber-crime.
A general sense of fear was already there due to the misuse and over-exploitation of Section 57 of the ICT Act, the precursor law to the DSA.
In the state’s pursuit of cyber offenders, it happened many a time in the past that innocent people were made victims of cases filed under Section 57.
Much to the dismay of free thinkers and press freedom advocates, the DSA came with a package of more non-bailable provisions than its precursor law, the ICT Act, meaning that once a case is filed and courts are satisfied with the plaintiff’s prayers, the accused must endure some time in prison -- no matter whether later one is found guilty or not.
What is most disturbing?
Lately, two features that come out prominently in the cases being filed under DSA against journalists are:
1) They are being arrested and sent to jail almost immediately upon filing of cases and by the time they are being proven not-guilty, they have already suffered serious ordeals.
2) In many of the instances, the plaintiff is neither the alleged victim nor even a relation of the alleged victim. What they do mostly is take upon themselves the “duty” of protecting the “good image” of the ones they thought have been offended by any report or comment.
These trends fly in the face of the spirit of the free press helping democracy thrive.
Harassing people, journalists included, in the name of flimsy “image” issues is becoming an all too regular phenomenon.
Such an environment will only help relief thieves to thrive as the free press is cowed.