The Anti-Terrorism (amendment) Act 2013 contains a section that, experts say, will give law enforcers blanket power to trample on people’s rights to privacy, guaranteed by the constitution, making the public vulnerable to victimisation.
The authorities may also abuse the law against the opposition and innocent people, said legal professionals and rights activists.
The main opposition BNP has decided to discuss the bill at its highest policymaking body – the standing committee – in a day or two, Shahid Uddin Chowdhury Annie, the acting chief whip of the opposition, told the Dhaka Tribune Thursday.
The section of the law, which was enacted by parliament on June 11, authorises police and other law enforcement agencies to record video, still photographs and conversations posted by people and organisations on social and communication media, such as Facebook, Twitter, Skype and emails, and present those in court as evidence in a trial.
The law also includes nine international conventions to suppress terrorism.
Lawyer Shahdin Malik told the Dhaka Tribune Thursday that article 43 of the constitution guarantees the privacy of correspondence and home of individuals, subject to reasonable restrictions imposed by the law.
“But when police are given blanket authority to track individuals, the constitutional rights of privacy of correspondence and home becomes meaningless,” he said.
Police may have tracked criminals based on the grounds of them committing horrendous crimes, but “there are risks of misusing the law.”
However, Malik said the UN conventions attached with the law were certainly of international standard.
According to section 2 of the anti-terrorism act, all transactions – manual, electronic or digital – will come under the authorities’ scanner and they can also present cheques, money orders, pay orders, demand drafts and telegraphic transfers as evidence of alleged crimes.
Sultana Kamal, the executive director of Ain O Salish Kendra, told the Dhaka Tribune that authorities could harass innocent people, using emails documenting transactions as evidence.
“The law can be misused,” she said.
“This is a black law … This aims at making the country a police state,” said Adilur Rahman Khan, the general secretary of rights body Odhikar.
The BNP, which earlier termed the law “black” in parliament, said the law was made aiming at suppressing opposition parties ahead of the national polls.
“We will discuss this black law at our standing committee’s meeting in a day or two to decide our political stand,” acting opposition chief whip Annie said.
Sheikh Hasina’s government passed the anti-terrorism act in 2009 for the first time, mainly to “crush Islamist militants, and stop patronisation of Indian separatists in Bangladeshi territory.”
The law employs the death sentence as the maximum punishment for terrorist activities and patronising terrorism. It prohibits fuelling of militancy and extremism inside or outside Bangladesh.
The government brought the first amendment to the law in 2012, inserting provisions that authorised it, and Bangladesh Bank, to track any dubious financial transactions.
The international conventions included in the law are: Convention for the Suppression of Unlawful Seizure of Aircraft signed in the Hague on December 16, 1970; Convention for the Suppression of Unlawful Acts against the Safety of Civil Aviation, signed in Montreal on September 23, 1971; Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Crimes against Internationally Protected Persons, including Diplomatic Agents, adopted by the UN General Assembly on December 14, 1973; International Convention against the Taking of Hostages, adopted by the UN General Assembly on December 17, 1979; Convention on the Physical Protection of Nuclear Material; Protocol for the Suppression of Unlawful Acts of Violence at Airports serving International Civil Aviation; Convention for the Suppression of Unlawful Acts against Safety and Maritime Navigation, and Convention for the Suppression of Unlawful Acts against the Safety of Fixed Platforms Located on the Continental Shelf; Convention for the Suppression of Terrorist Bombings, adopted by the UN General Assembly on December 15, 1997.