Lawyer and human rights activist Sara Hossain reacted strongly as the war crimes tribunal held her husband, David Bergman, a British national, in contempt.
Bergman, a New Age journalist, blogs religiously about the proceedings at the International Crimes Tribunals and has been the object of ire a few times before for his observations about tribunal proceedings.
The second war crimes tribunal on Tuesday sentenced him to prison for as long as the court was in session and fined Tk5,000 failing to pay which, he would suffer further imprisonment.
His wife Sara Hossain, with about 20 years of lawyering under her belt, expressed strong reservations about the court’s observations saying that the court’s ruling, in the name of the spirit of Liberation War, in fact contradicted its very premise — the right to speak freely.
“This ruling does not advocate dissent or free speech in any way. In fact it obstructs that very concept.”
Also the daughter of noted lawyer and politician Kamal Hossain, who served as law minister in Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman’s cabinet between 1972 and 1973, Sara Hossain told reporters on Tuesday that it was completely beyond the jurisdiction of tribunal to comment on a person’s citizenship.
The tribunal had wondered how a foreign citizen could live and work in Bangladesh.
“If the tribunal means to say that a husband of a Bangladeshi citizen has no right to stay here, or speak his mind, then I most firmly protest,” said Sara.
Sara said cases had been lodged against the Human Rights Watch and The Economist for questioning on the number of martyrs of during the 1971 Liberation War. But neither party was punished since they are not within reach, Sara said. “But he [Bergman] was sentenced because this man is within reach.”
I cannot understand why it would be a crime if one merely refers to other people’s observations, Sara told journalists.
It is officially acknowledged that 3m people died during the nine-month Liberation War, which is held as disproportionately bloated by a number of academics and researchers.
“If you think Bergman’s punishment is just, then all Indian journalists who have written on the matter, all of them should be brought under trial.”
Bergman served his prison time, of about 10 minutes, standing as the court rose shortly after it delivered the verdict.
Bergman was convicted in a case that originated from an application filed by a lawyer in February alleging that he had circulated “derogatory criticisms and remarks about the tribunal” through his three articles – one published in 2011 while the two others were published in January last year in his personal blog.
The title of the first article published in November 2011 was “Sayedee indictment: 1971 deaths,” which questioned the death figure during the nine-month-long Liberation War.
The title of the second and third articles posted in his blog in January last year – for which Bergman has been punished – were “Azad Judgment Analysis 1: In absentia trials and defence inadequacy” and “Azad Judgment Analysis 2: Tribunal assumptions.”