Amid the snowballing discussion on the proposed Cyber Security Act (CSA), the government has uploaded a draft of the act online for opinions from different quarters.
Disclosing the matter on Thursday, Law Minister Anisul Huq said they will collect and assess the opinions for the next two weeks.
The draft law was published on the website of the Digital Security Agency of the Information and Communication Division on Wednesday.
The minister claimed that the law would be very helpful in stopping the harassment of journalists.
"The proposed CSA will be very helpful in stopping cybercrimes. Apart from these, the mental pressure created among people because of the Digital Security Act (DSA), the panic seen while publishing news freely in media and concerns raised by the journalist community will also go away," the minister said while addressing a press briefing on the DSA and the proposed CSA at the BCC Auditorium in Dhaka.
The sternness of punishment under the DSA, which was controversial, has been reduced in the CSA to a great extent, and some non-bailable offences have been made bailable, he added.
"The DSA has Section 29 to deal with defamation charges. In the proposed law, the only punishment is a fine or a jail term of three to six months in default. The maximum punishment in this regard is an amount of fine of not more than Tk25 lakh," he said.
The law minister also said the changes brought to the act were so many that if the government had stuck with the previous name, the DSA, it would have had to call it the Digital Security Amended Act, which would have been confusing. “So, the government opted for the name CSA, 2023. We added cyber security to increase its extent.”
On Wednesday, The Editors' Council urged the government to consult media stakeholders before finalising the draft CSA so the new law also does not play out to be counteractive to press freedom.
The Cabinet on Monday approved in principle the draft of the new act, annulling some provisions like jail terms on defamation charges.
The DSA was enacted on October 8, 2018, with the aim of preventing the spread of racism; sectarianism; extremism; terrorist propaganda; and hatred against religious or ethnic minorities through social media, print media or any other electronic media.
However, since its inception, the act has been criticized heavily for its misuse.
Anisul Huq told the parliament last June that since the enactment of the DSA, there have been 7,001 cases filed under the act across the country till January 31 this year.