Govt wants to get over election challenges thru DSA: Mirza Fakhrul

BNP Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir has accused the government of using the Digital Security Act (DSA) to get over the challenges before it at the forthcoming parliamentary elections.

"All black laws should be cancelled. First of all, the Digital Security Act should be repealed. Now it is the demand of the country and the people," he said at a seminar in the capital on Tuesday.

The opposition party organised the seminar on "Digital Security Act, Democracy, and Constitutional Framework" at Lakeshore Hotel in Gulshan.

"Citizens are being deterred by digital security laws: they will not speak out; they will not express their grievances; they will not write. Arrangements are being made so that journalists do not write," alleged the BNP spokesperson.

"Using other laws in the same manner, they (the ruling party) want to win the elections by keeping their opponents completely away from them."

He alleged that the government wants to consolidate power by using these laws.

"All these laws are being passed so that no one can get in the way of this election, no one can protest the ruling party's wrongdoing, and no one can stop them at the election," he added.

Mirza Fakhrul said, "A Deutsche Welle video about RAB's activities has spread around the world. One of the witnesses in that video was Nafiz, who was arrested yesterday. Their only goal is not to let citizens speak or exercise their rights. They still want to establish a monarchy."

At the seminar, individuals who had been arrested earlier under the Digital Security Act also alleged harassment and demanded the repeal of the law, calling it a "black law."

Ruhul Amin Gazi, a former president of the Bangladesh Federal Union of Journalists, who was in jail for 17 months in a DSA case, said, "All the rights of the people have been taken away through the act. All the provisions of this law are bad, cruel, merciless, and against human rights."

Photographer M Shafiqul Islam Kajol, who was missing for 53 days and later shown arrested under the act, said, "How independent is the media in Bangladesh? I think the media is on its deathbed."

"When I was missing, I could not understand anything: Where am I? How am I? I was blindfolded. I was close to dying in crossfire. There were complaints that I had written against the prime minister. I might have written. It is my constitutional right. For that reason, would I be abducted? Would I be taken into a crossfire situation? Would I go to jail?"

Sonia Akhtar Smriti, a BNP leader from Rajbari, said, "I have been sued under the ICT Act for speaking against the government. I don't know where they took me from Rajbari at night and kept me for a few hours."

BNP standing committee member Khandkar Mosharraf Hossain said, "The DSA is contradictory to our constitution; this digital law is contradictory to our democracy, and this digital security law is contradictory to the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights."

He said the head of human rights at the United Nations has told the government to suspend it. "This is what we want to say."

BNP standing committee member Mirza Abbas and Amir Khasru Mahmud Chowdhury, among others, spoke at the seminar.