The Bangla Community Blog Alliance (BCBA) has demanded the release of two bloggers, who were arrested in a case filed for making derogatory remarks against religion in Chittagong.
The leading umbrella of Bangladesh-based blogs made the demand by posting a press release on their website on Thursday.
In the press release, the BCBA has observed that the police arrested the two bloggers instead of ensuring security for them. It also said it was unlawful to arrest them as both of them were still in their adolescence.
It read: “The detained bloggers Kazi Raihan Rahi and Ullash D Bhabon came under attack of a fundamental group Aparajeo Bangla on March 30. But, the police didn’t take any action against the attackers and didn’t treat them the way adolescents should have been treated.
It has been a rising tendency that users of social media are coming under arrest or becoming the victims of harassment under the excuse of defamatory acts against the religion,” it added.
Urging people to be united to resist the “repressive section 57,” it said: “We urge the authority concerned to the release of the bloggers, ensure their families’ security, book the attackers, take action against the police involved and cancel section 57.”
Earlier on Sunday, police arrested Kazi Mahbubur Rahman Raihan and Ullash Das, the students of Chittagong College and HSC examinees of this year, from the city’s Chawkbazar area for their writing “insulting comments about Islam and Prophet Mohammad (SM)” on their Facebook accounts.
The duo was produced before the court of Metropolitan Magistrate Rahamat Ali on Monday and the court ordered to send them to jail after rejecting their bail pleas.