The police raid on popular singer Nancy’s home, in response to a Facebook status update, is yet more evidence of how fast the government is sliding down a slippery slope that could lead to a worrisome eclipsing of our individual rights and freedoms.
Nancy’s innocuous status update was an expression of her individual opinion -the opinion of a non-politically affiliated pop-singer, and resulted from her own observations and assessment of the current political climate.
She, like anybody else in the country, is entitled to her opinion and is well within her rights to state it. She neither engaged in propaganda nor acted seditiously by posting her frustrations with the ruling party, and hasn’t become a terrorist-sympathiser simply by expressing her appreciation for BNP politics.
Even if her status update was loaded and had partisan connotations, there is nothing illegal about having political preferences, and in any case, it cannot warrant a raid on her house. If her views were objectionable, even criminal, there are legally sanctioned mechanisms to address this and a night-time raid on a private residence is not one of them.
The government’s decision to use tactics of intimidation against a popular personality over something like a Facebook post shows its lack of both tact and acumen, given that their success in the upcoming polls will be affected by the public’s impression of the way they are regarded by their elected leaders.