How Hasina became a 'predator' of press freedom

Illustration: TBS

When the now-ousted prime minister Sheikh Hasina was named as a "predator of the press freedom" by Reporters Without Border in 2021, she had already emerged as an all-powerful leader in Bangladesh by bringing all key institutions under her thumb.

By holding two stage-managed elections in 2014 and 2018, she trampled on people's constitutional rights to elect representatives and destroyed the election system.

The story goes on. Parliament and judiciary – two other key organs of the state – were made subservient to the executive branch of which she was the head, resulting in a collapse of the system of check and balance paving the way for the rise of an authoritarian ruler.  

In addition, the complete politicisation of the police service, civil administration and other statutory institutions, transformed them into a "monstrous system" whose sole purpose was to keep Hasina in power.

The inevitable outcomes were the rise of rampant corruption, crony capitalism, robbing banks in the guise of taking loans, and extra-judicial killings among others.  Violation of human rights was among the key features of the regime Hasina had been presiding over until her ouster on 5 August.

Blatant abuse of the draconian cyber laws dealing with defamation became a lethal weapon indiscriminately used against her political opponents, journalists and critics daring to raise dissenting voices.

Active cooperation of the law enforcement agencies and the judiciary, especially judges and magistrates in the lower judiciary, with her help, created an atmosphere of fear which appeared to be the biggest threat to freedom of speech and press.

Media tamed

Another strategy kept under the sleeve was also brought out. The corporatisation of the media industry by allowing pro-Hasina regime business houses to invest resources and power into newspapers to blare about her "development narrative" and hound those media and the investors deemed to be critical of their own and Hasina's interests.

Her strategy worked well. The media industry has been polluted and divided too in a time when the Hasina government was continuously clipping the wings of freedom of the press.

Every time she held a press conference at the Gono Bhaban, the official residence of the prime minister, an alarming display of sycophancy unfolded presented by a selected group of "journalists" who were known to be loyal to her and the business of the day was broadcast live on televisions. The managed events also exposed, according to critics, her narcissistic personality disorder--one of the traits of despots.   

This was the situation that prevailed in Bangladesh when in July 2021 Reporters Without Border (RSF) included Hasina on the gallery of predators of the freedom of the press along with 36 other heads of state or government who were accused of trampling the free press by creating a censorship apparatus and jailing journalists arbitrarily or inciting violence against them.

In 2014 freedom of the Press Index by Reporters Without Border Bangladesh scored 57.42 out of 100 but it slipped to 27.64 in the 2024 index released in May this year, the lowest in South Asia after Afghanistan.

Every time she held a press conference at the Gono Bhaban, the official residence of the prime minister, an alarming display of sycophancy unfolded presented by a selected group of "journalists" who were known to be loyal to her and the business of the day was broadcast live on televisions.

Hasina had the dubious distinction of being one of the first two women who joined the predators' gallery. The other woman leader was Carrie Lam who was head of the Hong Kong government from 2017 to 2022.

The first list by RSF was published in 2001. The 2021 list of predators came five years after the last one in 2016. Three other South Asian leaders--Narendra Modi of India, Imran Khan of Pakistan and Gotabaya Rajapaksa of Sri Lanka were made debutants in the gallery.

Sri Lanka's President Gotabaya Rajapaksa fled the country in an uprising in July 2022, a year after he was named as a predator of press freedom.

Pakistan's prime minister Imran Khan was ousted from power in April 2022. And Narendra Modi's party lost a parliamentary majority in the election held this year and remains in power with the support of his allies.

Russia's Vladimir Putin and Belarus's Alexander Lukashenko, and Rwanda's Paul Kagame are among others on the list of predators of press freedom.

How Hasina abused the laws

Faced with growing criticism for holding the 2014 one-sided election disenfranchising people, the Hasina regime used section 57 of the Information and Communications Technology Act of 2006 viciously.

Dozens of editors, journalists, teachers, social media users and free thinkers have already been sued on charges of defamation under section 57 of the ICT law.

Many of them were arrested by police without delay after the filing of the cases and put behind bars. Getting bail was made extremely difficult.

In 2013, the Hasina government amended the ICT law empowering police to arrest anybody sued under section 57 without a warrant. Thus, it pruned the power of the court as well.

Amid widespread outcry and anger both at home and abroad made by local and international human rights bodies, the Hasina government promised to make another cyber law which would later be named the Digital Security Act.

But that new law made in 2018 was old wine in a new bottle as it retained the provision of section 57 of ICT law.

As the new law faced criticism too, Hasina in October 2018 said, "Journalists who do not publish false news need not worry about the DSA." But, according to the critics, blatant abuse of the DSA allowed the Hasina government to determine which news story was "true" and which one was "false".

DSA, a tool for abuse

A study by the Centre for Governance Studies (CGS) came up with startling findings in April this year highlighting how the DSA was abused.

It found that at least 4,520 people have been charged in 1,436 cases filed between October 2018 and September 2023. Around 60 percent of the cases were filed by law enforcement agencies, the government, or pro-government political parties.

It tracked the identities of the accusers of 859 cases and found that ruling party activists filed 263 of them, suing 887 people.

"The DSA was wholly abused as a tool of political repression," the researchers found.

As criticism still grew, the Hasina government passed a new law named the Cyber Security Act [CSA] in September 2023 replacing the DSA. This time also, it was the old wine in a new bottle. The definitions of offence remained the same here. Only punishments have been lessened and many non-bailable sections have been made bailable.

SOME VICTIMS

Numerous anecdotes speak loudly of the abuse they faced aided by a legal instrument. Some sparked widespread outcry by local and international rights bodies.  

The death of a dissident writer Mushtaq Ahmed, who had been locked up under the controversial DSA for over nine months, in February 2021 triggered an outcry.

He was critical, on social media, of the government's handling of the pandemic. In May 2020, Rapid Action Battalion members arrested him at his Dhaka home for "spreading rumours and carrying out anti-government activities".

He was denied bail six times as the lower judiciary was under complete control of the now detained law minister Anisul Huq who was arrested on 13 August along with Salman F Rahman while allegedly attempting to flee the country.

Cartoonist Ahmed Kabir Kishore, who was also arrested with Mushtaque in the same case, was allegedly tortured brutally.

The story of Khadijatul Kubra, a student at Jagannath University, is shocking too.

A student of political science, Khadija was arrested in August 2022 after police pressed charges against her in two cases filed by Kalabagan and New Market police in October 2020.

The student was sued at the age of 17 for hosting a Facebook webinar, where a guest speaker, Delwar Hossain, a retired army officer, made remarks against Hasina.

Delwar, an expatriate, was also accused in these cases. Although Khadija was sued as a minor, she had to undergo a full adult trial and incarceration.

She was denied bail at the lower court. The High Court granted her bail in February in the cases following her appeals. But this was stood over for four months by the Appellate Division in July. Finally, in November 2023, the Appellate Division upheld a High Court bail order confirming her release after she languished 14 months in prison.

The flurry of defamation cases filed around the country against Mahfuz Anam, editor of The Daily Star, by ruling party men appeared to be the biggest threat to independent journalism in 2016, two years after the one-sided 2014 parliamentary election through which Hasina made sure to be unassailable in power.

In just two weeks 67 criminal defamation and 16 sedition cases were filed against him with magistrate courts in various districts of Bangladesh.

The cases were filed after Anam made a public confession, expressing regret over articles that his newspaper, The Daily Star, published during the emergency regime (2007-08) on uncorroborated allegations of corruption against Hasina who was arrested by the emergency regime.

At that time, reports on alleged corruption against politicians were supplied by the media cell of the Directorate General of Forces Intelligence (DGFI). It was not possible for the media to independently verify the allegations.

The New York Times in a report in March 2016 says if convicted in all of the cases, Anam faces a prison sentence of up to 175 years. In the meantime, he is obliged to crisscross the country to appear at hearings in 50 of the country's 64 judicial districts and is petitioning the country's high court to consolidate them.

The size of the damages claimed by the ruling party men who felt defamed and filed the cases amounted to about US $8 billion, according to a Guardian report in May 2017.

Both the magistrates and ruling party men ignored the law in filing and recording the defamation cases against Mahfuz Anam under sections 499 and 500 of the Penal Code.

Section 198 of the Code of Criminal Procedure did not allow any court to take cognisance of an offence of defamation under the provisions of the Penal Code except upon a complaint made by persons aggrieved by such offence. There was no scope to file proxy cases by others.

Even a magistrate court in Narayanganj issued an arrest warrant against Mahfuz Anam ignoring the law. In defamation cases filed under the Penal Code, a magistrate could not issue an arrest warrant in the first place. He may summon the accused first.  

The attacks of cyber law

The original provision of section 57 of the ICT act reads: "If any person deliberately publishes or transmits or causes to be published or transmitted in the website or in any other electronic form any material which is false and obscene and if anyone sees, hears or reads it having regard to all relevant circumstances, its effect is such as to influence the reader to become dishonest or corrupt or causes to deteriorate or creates the possibility to deteriorate law and order, prejudice the image of the state or person or causes to hurt or may hurt religious belief or instigate against any person or organisation, then this activity will be regarded as an offence."

One may be punished for up to 14 years and at least seven years' imprisonment for committing an offence under section 57. An individual may face up to two years' prison under the Penal Code for defaming others.

A similar provision once existed in India in the Information Technology Act 2000 which helped the government to create an atmosphere of fear.

India's Supreme Court struck it down in March 2015 saying "Such a provision of the law strikes at the root of liberty and freedom of expression."  

In the landmark verdict, India's SC said the liberty of thought and expression is not merely an aspirational ideal. It is also "a cardinal value that is of paramount significance under our constitutional scheme."

But the provision first in ICT law, later in DSA and CSA, still remains in force in Bangladesh which armed the Hasina government to continue with political repression. The inevitable outcome is: Democracy died in darkness. She had to resign and flee the country hastily.