{"id":1196,"date":"2013-10-09T10:05:36","date_gmt":"2013-10-09T10:05:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.askbd.org\/ask\/?p=1196"},"modified":"2015-03-01T06:30:46","modified_gmt":"2015-03-01T06:30:46","slug":"ict-amendment-act-2013-information-freedom-expression-threat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.askbd.org\/ask\/2013\/10\/09\/ict-amendment-act-2013-information-freedom-expression-threat\/","title":{"rendered":"ICT (Amendment) Act, 2013: Right to Information and Freedom of Expression under Threat"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Ain-o-Salish Kendra (ASK)\u00a0 joined TIB, BILIA, Article 19, Manusher Jonno Foundation (MJF), Bangladesh Legal Aid and Services Trust (BLAST), Bangladesh Environmental Lawyers Association (BELA), Institute of Informatics and Development (IID) in organising this roundtable discussion which was held on the 7th of September 2013.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.thedailystar.net\/beta2\/news\/amended-ict-law-to-take-country-towards-medieval-age\/\">Source : Daily Star Online Report <\/a><\/p>\n<p>Top constitutional expert Dr Shahdeen Malik has urged the government to remove the Section 57 of the ICT law, saying the clause will take the country towards the medieval age.<br \/>\nSpeaking at a roundtable on Saturday, he said the citizens of the country hope the parliament will not pass the amendment to the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Act-2006 as the Section 57 has made it \u2018ridiculous\u2019.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_1199\" style=\"width: 670px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.askbd.org\/ask\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/ICT-Ordinance-Law.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1199\" class=\" wp-image-1199 \" alt=\"ICT Ordinance Law\" src=\"http:\/\/www.askbd.org\/ask\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/ICT-Ordinance-Law.jpg\" width=\"660\" height=\"400\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.askbd.org\/ask\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/ICT-Ordinance-Law.jpg 660w, https:\/\/www.askbd.org\/ask\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/ICT-Ordinance-Law-300x181.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.askbd.org\/ask\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/ICT-Ordinance-Law-495x300.jpg 495w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 660px) 100vw, 660px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-1199\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Executive Director of Transparency International Bangladesh Dr Iftekharuzzaman speaks while jurist Dr Shahdeen Malik and ASK Chairperson Hameeda Hossain also attend \u2018ICT (Amendment) Act, 2013: Right to Information and Freedom of Expression under Threat\u2019 at the Cirdap auditorium in the capital on Saturday. Photo: Anisur Rahman<\/p><\/div>\n<p>The cabinet approved the draft of the ICT (Amendment) Act-2013 on August 19 proposing to empower law enforcers to arrest any person without warrant and increase the highest punishment to 14 years from minimum 7 years.<br \/>\nThe government has later promulgated the ICT (amendment) ordinance.<br \/>\nAccording to the Section 57 of the ordinance, if any person deliberately publishes any material in electronic form that causes to deteriorate law and order, prejudice the image of the State or person or causes to hurt religious belief the offender will be punished for maximum 14 years and minimum 7 years imprisonment. It also suggested that the crime is non-bailable.<br \/>\nIn the original ICT Act-2006, enacted by the BNP-Jamaat government, the maximum punishment was 10 years\u2019 jail term and a fine of Tk 1 crore. And police had to seek permission from the authorities concerned to file a case and arrest any person involved in crimes covered under the law.<br \/>\nThe roundtable styled \u2018ICT (Amendment) Act, 2013: Right to Information and Freedom of Expression under Threat\u2019 was organised at the Cirdap auditorium in the capital.<br \/>\nTIB, BILIA, Ain-o-Salish Kendra (ASK), Article 19, Manusher Jonno Foundation (MJF), Bangladesh Legal Aid and Services Trust (BLAST), Bangladesh Environmental Lawyers Association (BELA), Institute of Informatics and Development (IID) jointly organised the discussion.<br \/>\nIn recent times, Amar Desh acting editor Mahmudur Rahman, rights organisation Odhikar\u2019s Secretary Adilur Rahman, bloggers Asif Mohiuddin, Mashiur Rahman Biplob, Subrata Adhikari Shuvo and Rasel Parvez have been arrested in cases filed under the ICT Act.<br \/>\nDr Shahdeen Malik said punishment for lying has been abolished from the world 200 years ago but the government is creating such law again which is against the secular concept of state.<br \/>\nDr Iftekharuzzaman, executive director of Transparency International Bangladesh (TIB), said the parliament session is due to start very soon but before that the amendment has been promulgated as an ordinance, raising concern to all.<br \/>\n\u201cIt won\u2019t create concern if our law enforcers were professional enough or could work out of political influence. There is no assurance that the law will not be abused,\u201d he said.<br \/>\nThe opposition party is not saying a single word and may be thinking to use it against the current government in future, he assumed.<\/p>\n<p>Document Presented in Bengali<iframe loading=\"lazy\" style=\"width: 100%; height: 500px;\" src=\"http:\/\/docs.google.com\/gview?url=http:\/\/www.askbd.org\/ask\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/ICT-Act-Mahbub.pdf&amp;embedded=true\" height=\"240\" width=\"320\" frameborder=\"0\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Ain-o-Salish Kendra (ASK)\u00a0 joined TIB, BILIA, Article 19, Manusher Jonno Foundation (MJF), Bangladesh Legal Aid and Services Trust (BLAST), Bangladesh Environmental Lawyers Association (BELA), Institute of Informatics and Development (IID)&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":759,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[52,9,66],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1196","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ask-roundtable","category-civil-and-political-rights","category-current-news"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.askbd.org\/ask\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1196","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.askbd.org\/ask\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.askbd.org\/ask\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.askbd.org\/ask\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.askbd.org\/ask\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1196"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.askbd.org\/ask\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1196\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1201,"href":"https:\/\/www.askbd.org\/ask\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1196\/revisions\/1201"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.askbd.org\/ask\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/759"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.askbd.org\/ask\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1196"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.askbd.org\/ask\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1196"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.askbd.org\/ask\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1196"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}