Interim govt must restore freedom of expression in Bangladesh, repeal Cyber Security Act: Amnesty

Human rights organisation Amnesty International has called on the upcoming interming government of Bangladesh, which is set to take oath tomorrow, to repeal the Cyber Security Act (CSA) 2023.

In a news briefing today (7 August), Amnesty described the law as "a continuation of successive repressive legislations in Bangladesh that have repeatedly facilitated the state's crackdown on civic space and human rights, including during the student-led quota-reform protests".

The full briefing is stated below:

Repackaging Repression: The Cyber Security Act and the Continuing Lawfare Against Dissent in Bangladesh, reveals that the CSA rehashes almost all of the repressive provisions of the repealed Digital Security Act (DSA) 2018 and Section 57 of the Information and Communications Technology (ICT) Act 2006 that preceded it, and has been weaponized to target journalists, human rights defenders and dissidents despite the former government's repeated assurances to the contrary.

On 26 June 2024, in the build-up to the ongoing quota-reform protests, Bangladesh police arrested a man under the CSA for his criticism of the quota system in a Facebook post.  In another case, seven people were charged under the CSA on 24 July during the protests for publishing 'satirical pictures and taunting' government officials, including ex-Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, in a Facebook post.

"The recent deadly crackdown on the student protests in Bangladesh has taken place against a wider backdrop of increasing intolerance and suppression of dissent in the country. The interim government must undo this long-standing legacy of quashing dissent by repealing laws such as the CSA which threaten and undermine the rights to freedom of expression, liberty and privacy in Bangladesh," said Taqbir Huda, regional researcher for South Asia at Amnesty International.

"The CSA is essentially a replication of the DSA. It is merely an attempt to douse growing international pressure through performative reforms which repackage authoritarian provisions and practices into an ostensibly new law. Such tokenism makes a mockery of international human rights treaties to which Bangladesh is a state party and creates a continuum of injustice. This must end."

The briefing presents a comprehensive analysis of the CSA in Bangladesh and the pattern of cases filed under it so far. It draws on interviews with a range of stakeholders, including former detainees and their relatives and lawyers, as well as journalists and human rights defenders in Bangladesh.

The findings also suggest a wider crackdown by the authorities on civic space through a range of repressive powers and measures. These include police powers to arrest and search individuals without warrants, excessive use of pretrial detention through refusal of bail and arbitrary removal of online content. These practices were further rolled out to quell the student-led quota-reform protests, before it led to the resignation of the former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.

Same law, new name: 'Take the D out of DSA and add C'

In September 2023, the CSA replaced the controversial DSA which was systematically used to clamp down on peaceful dissent and silence critical opinions. Similarly, the DSA had been enacted to repeal and replace Section 57 of the ICT Act, which criminalized the publication of 'fake, obscene or defamatory information' in electronic form and was also used to stifle peaceful dissent.

A journalist told Amnesty International: "The massive campaign against DSA at the national and international levels forced the government to distance itself from the DSA by putting on a performance of introducing a new law in its place. You can take the D out of DSA and add C to make it CSA. But it is the same… they will use the CSA just like they used the DSA to strangle your throat."

Amnesty International's analysis found that the CSA retains 58 of the 62 provisions of the DSA: 28 provisions are retained verbatim while 25 provisions are retained with minor changes (such as alterations to terminology or sentencing). The remaining five provisions are retained with some changes to procedural requirements. The CSA only adds one new provision which is an offence for filing false cases. Therefore, 58 of the 59 provisions in the CSA were inherited from the DSA either verbatim or with minor changes or procedural alterations. Further, when enacting the CSA to replace the DSA, the former Government of Bangladesh failed to incorporate (in whole or in part) all but one of the nine legislative recommendations made by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) in June 2022.

Crucially, the CSA retains the five authoritarian speech offences under the DSA that were weaponized by the ruling party and its affiliates to muzzle peaceful dissent. These speech offences penalize opinions that can be deemed by authorities as 'propaganda against the spirit of liberation war', 'false and offensive information', 'hurting religious sentiments', 'defamatory information' or 'deteriorating law and order' by 'disrupting communal harmony'.

Unchecked powers: "The police do as they please"

The CSA retains sweeping powers of authorities to search, arrest and detain individuals and seize their devices without providing adequate safeguards on the usage and storage of data in them.

It also allows the government-controlled Cyber Security Agency or law enforcement agencies to make blanket requests for information to be blocked or removed from the cyber space based on vague grounds such as 'threat to cyber security', without any judicial oversight or opportunity to appeal the process. Although termed a 'request', such arbitrary demands by the Cyber Security Agency and law enforcement forces are binding on the Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC).

A lawyer told Amnesty International: "The government wields full power to decide what can and cannot be said in the cyber world, with utmost control but not the least bit of accountability or transparency."

Self-censorship: 'No one can afford to pay the price of speaking up'

Despite a gap in official data and the likelihood of under-reporting, Amnesty International found media reports of at least ten instances where CSA cases have been filed against individuals for allegedly defaming the then-prime minister Sheikh Hasina or other high-ranking government officials on social media within just six months of its enactment.

A news editor told Amnesty International: "From the most senior journalist to a small fry Youtuber, everyone is now in a state of self-censorship because no one, and I mean no one, can afford to pay the price of speaking up."

Amnesty International has analysed and investigated emblematic CSA cases filed against blogger Selim Khan, cartoonist and climate activist Shamim Ashraf and religious preacher Akramuzzaman Bin Abdus Salam in the briefing.

"The authorities' persistent lawfare against peaceful dissent over the past decade has escalated repression against journalists, human rights defenders and dissidents and created a state of self-censorship which will continue to exist unless the ongoing cases are dropped and repressive provisions in CSA are fully removed," said Taqbir Huda.

"Amnesty International calls on the Interim Government of Bangladesh to repeal or substantially amend the CSA to fully comply with international human rights law. The authorities must immediately release all those who remain detained under the ICT Act, DSA, CSA or any other law solely for peacefully exercising their human rights and drop all the charges against them."