How hard will the United Nations push the Bangladesh government on the Digital security Act?
How hard will the United Nations push the Bangladesh government on the Digital Security Act — the law that has resulted in hundreds being detained for speaking critically of the government?
The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet has called for a Bangladesh government review of the Digital Security Act and for an investigation into the death of Musthaq Ahmed (who died during a nine month pre-trial detention period) to be “prompt, transparent and independent.”
The government seems to be willing — finally — to make some kind of changes to the law, though whether they will be anywhere near adequate or not is far less certain. (Remember, the Digital Security Act was supposed to be an improvement on the Information and Communication Technology 2006 Act, yet its application has been no different, in fact probably far more repressive in its impact.) The DSA serves an important interest for the government — to silence critics whom question its legitimacy, human rights record and response to corruption — and the government will not be keen to abandon its use for this purpose.
Putting to one side the need to restrict the circumstances when the Act can apply, the most important reform that needs to be made is to stop any kind of pre-trial detention. If the police believe that a social media post should result in a prosecution of the act, why is there any need to detain that person? What investigation requires the person to be detained before the trial? It is used in Bangladesh for pure harassment — and has a significant chilling effect.
The government is even less likely to ensure that any investigation into the death of Ahmed will be “transparent and independent”. The Bangladesh government simply does not do transparent and independent!
There are however two further demands that are made by Bachelet — which have got less attention — but should be highlighted.
First, she called for a suspension of the application of the Act. She stated
“Bangladesh urgently needs to suspend the application of the Digital Security Act ..”
Second, and more significantly, she called for release of all those people currently detained under the Act. She stated
“[A]ll those detained under this Act for exercising their rights to freedom of expression and opinion must be released.”
The Bangladesh government has shown no indication that they are willing to accede to these demands
It is positive that the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights has been willing to issue this hard hitting statement. But what is the Commissioner actually going to do to ensure that this statement represents more than just fine words and not be ignored. Will the UN — along with other members of the international community — actually start placing some pressure on Bangladesh government to release the detained and suspend the DSA’s future application until significant reforms are made?
