Two teens have been beaten and arrested as a result of ‘hurting religious sentiments’. Police hid it from mainstream media to avoid a religious riot
After they were attacked and beaten by a mob, two teenage bloggers were arrested for allegedly posting “derogatory comments against Islam and Prophet Mohammad” on their Facebook accounts, according to Bangladesh’s English daily Dhaka Tribune.
Fellow bloggers allege that an Islamist student organization distributed false propaganda material which rallied the mob against the two bloggers and led to their arrest. The mainstream media has largely refrained from reporting this story.
Bloggers say Kazi Mahbubur Rahman Raihan (Rahi) and Ullash Das, both secondary school students at Chittagong College, went to school on 30th March to collect admission cards for their upcoming Higher Secondary Certificate exams. They were then attacked by a mob of activists from the Islami Chhatra Shibir, a student organization aligned with the country’s largest Islamist party. They were dragged on to the street and beaten.
The law allows police to arrest a suspect without any means of judicial approval and to detain that person for an indefinite period of time
Police intervened to rescue them, but later arrested the two teenage bloggers. They were sent to jail, the following day, without bail, under Article 57 of the Information and Communications Technology Act, which criminalises ‘publishing fake, obscene or defaming information in electronic form’.
Their defence lawyer Abu Bakar Siddique Azim says that Raihan writes on the Bangla blogging platform Istishon Blog under the pseudonym ‘Ghurnayoman Electron’ (meaning Rotating Electron). Das uses only Facebook as a writing platform. He also said: “As far as we have seen, neither of them wrote any kind of public writing that goes against anyone’s religious belief.”
The controversial Article 57 and other amendments to the ICT Act were made by presidential decree in September 2013, despite broad criticism from legal and human rights experts. The law also allows police to arrest a suspect without any means of judicial approval and to detain that person, without bail, for an indefinite period of time.
The event has sparked much controversy among bloggers in the country. Blogger Midnight Train writes about the circumstances that led to their arrest on the Istishon blog:
On the Istishon blog, Sumit Chowdhury writes that the attackers used propaganda leaflets against the bloggers:
Sumit Chowdhury also writes:
The truth seeker Sabyasachi, a commenter on that post, asking:
M R Khan commented:
Blogger Shehab at Sachalayatan blog has uploaded copies of the police complaint and the application to the court detailing the incident as seen by police. The complaints include several details alleging that both bloggers have posted blasphemous content online.
Images: Cheryl Hotchkiss, Newtown grafitti via Flickr
This article by Rezwan was originally published by Global Voices Online, a website that translates and reports on blogs from around the world.
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