A Dhaka court Sunday framed charges against four bloggers in two cases for their alleged involvement in posting derogatory content about Islam and Prophet Muhammad (SM) on the internet.
Asif Mohiuddin, 26, Moshiur Rahman Biplob, 42, Rasel Parvez, 35, and Subrata Adhikari Shuvo, 24, were also charged for making derogatory comments about the prime minister and former home minister Shahara Khatun on social media.
All the accused use Facebook and write on somewhereinblog.net, nagorikblog.com and amarblog.com.
Dhaka’s Senior Special Judge Md Jahrul Haque passed the order after hearing a plea seeking exemption of four bloggers from the cases.
The court also fixed November 6 for the opening statement of the prosecution and the commencement of the trial.
Additional public prosecutor Tapash Paul read out the charges. Barrister Jyotirmoy Barua filed discharged petitions for the four bloggers. But after a hearing, the court rejected the petitions.
The police in the case forwarding mentioned that the bloggers had hurt the religious sentiment of people by posting derogatory remarks, caricatures and indecent comments about Islam, the Prophet Muhammad (SM) and other religions that angered people and caused a slide in law and order that led to anarchy. The defence counsels claimed that police had not produced any relevant documents.
The accused, present in the dock, pleaded not guilty and demanded justice.
Earlier, in their written statements made following arrest, the bloggers claimed that they used to write against the misuse of religion by Jamaat-e-Islam and its student wing Islami Chhatra Shibir.
They had admitted that they were not believers, but also said they had not hurt the sentiments of people of the Muslims and other religions.
On April 2, Detective Branch (DB) of police arrested Moshiur, Russel and Shuvo under Section 54 of the Code of Criminal Procedure for “hurting religious sentiments” with their “derogatory” postings on blogs and social networking sites. They were remanded the same day for seven days.
On April 3, police arrested Asif over the same charge. He was remanded twice for interrogation.
On April 17, the investigation officers in the cases submitted investigation reports to the court mentioning that they had filed two separate non-FIR cases one against Asif and the other against the three accused under section 57(2) of the Information and Communication Technology Act, 2006.
