The politicians have lodged the highest number of cases under the Digital Security Act, a much-criticised law that has recently been abolished.
A recent study conducted by the Centre for Governance Studies (CGS) on 1,410 DSA cases revealed that 77.78 per cent of the politicians filing these cases belong to the ruling Awami League.
The local thinktank disclosed the study outcomes at a webinar titled “The Perpetual Misery: The Plight of the Accused Under the Digital Security Act 2018 in Bangladesh” on Tuesday.
Ali Riaz, a distinguished professor at Illinois State University and chief of the research team, presented the study findings at the webinar.
The government legislated the act in 2018 and received widespread criticism at home and abroad. According to the law minister’s statement in parliament, a total of 7,001 cases have been filed under the DSA until January 2023.
However, the law was abolished in September 2023 and was replaced by the Cyber Security Act (CSA).
In his speech, Ali Riaz pointed out the discrepancies in the information provided by the law minister on the total number of cases filed under the DSA between October 2018 to January 2023, where the number of arrests and charges, prosecutions, convictions, pretrial detainees, and total incarcerated individuals was missing.
Ali Riaz provided the statistics and briefed about the lengthy and ongoing sufferings of the DSA Victims. He said, “There needs to be an independent investigation of the cases.”
The CGS studied the 1,410 cases filed between October 2018 and September 2023.