A young person in Bangladesh has been arrested for making a music video mocking Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Bangladeshi counterpart Sheikh Hasina, information company AFP reported.
Rabiul Islam, 19, was arrested on Wednesday in a northern city based mostly on a grievance by a pro-government youth chief underneath the stringent Digital Security Act, AFP quoted native police chief Abdullah Al-Mamun as saying.
“He made an offensive music video using photos of Bangladeshi and Indian prime ministers and posted it on his Facebook timeline,” Al-Mamun mentioned.
Islam faces as much as 14 years in jail underneath the mentioned Act and is anticipated to be charged with “defaming and tarnishing the image of the head of government”.
The teenager’s arrest comes days after hardline teams launched large-scale protests in opposition to PM Modi’s go to to Bangladesh to mark the fiftieth anniversary of its attaining nationhood. Over a dozen individuals have been killed within the clashes and the novel teams additionally attacked Hindu temples within the nation.
Islamist teams accuse Modi of discriminating in opposition to minority Muslims in Hindu-majority India.
What is Digital Security Act, 2018?
Islam’s arrest has been made underneath the Digital Security Act of 2018, which was introduced rather than the controversial Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Act of 2006.
The ICT Act granted legislation enforcers the precise to arrest any individual and not using a warrant for as much as 14 years. Between 2012-18, over a thousand individuals have been arrested underneath the ICT Act, based on a report by DW.
After widespread criticism, the legislation was changed with the DSA, which the federal government claimed would finish arbitrary arrests. But most of the ICT Act’s provisions have been reproduced in several varieties within the new legislation.
Hundreds of individuals have been arrested since 2018 underneath the Act for alleged crimes that embody smearing the picture of the prime minister and different political figures.
Section 21 of the DSA authorises life imprisonment, together with a hefty effective, for participating in “propaganda” or a “campaign” in opposition to the “spirit of the liberation War”, “father of the nation”, the “national anthem” or “national flag”.
Section 25 of the Act supplies particular safety to the state, and thus could also be used to ban or punish reliable political expression.
International organisations resembling Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have spoken in opposition to the brand new digital legislation, saying it has tightened the federal government’s chokehold on free speech.
The new legislation additionally prohibits efficient investigative journalism, Bangladesh’s Editors’ Council, an affiliation of newspaper editors, has mentioned.
In March, widespread protests befell within the nation over the demise of author Mushtaq Ahmed in detention, who was arrested underneath DSA for publishing an article and sharing Facebook posts important of Hasina’s dealing with of the coronavirus pandemic.