When the government implemented Cyber Security Act in place of Digital Security Act in September 2023, we immediately drew concerned people’s attention towards its dangerous aspect back then. At that time various partner organisations of different media also expressed their objection.
But the policy makers of the government tried to highlight only the positive sides of the act without considering these objections and protests. They claim that majority sections of the Digital Security Act enacted in 2018 were non-bailable. Whenever a case would be filed against someone they would have to stay imprisoned for an uncertain period.
It has been found in a statistics that only two per cent of the accused have been convicted in cases filed under the Digital Security Act. When it came to identifying the crime under this act, the decision of a field level official would be considered final which has been retained in the Cyber Security Act as well.
The statements High Court Division justice Sheikh Hassan Arif made in a workshop titled ‘Cyber Security Act and Law Reporting’, organised by Law’ Reporters Forum (LRF) on last Monday, only reechoed the concerns of the reporters.
Addressing media workers participating in the workshop the justice said, “Five sections of the act (22, 23, 25, 27 and 28) can land you into trouble in any way… In case of defamation under section No. 29, you might get away with a fine though. But, some of the sections can take a really dangerous turn for journalism.”
Section No. 22 of the act, talks about ‘Digital or Electronic Fraud’. But, there’s no specific definition on committing which act using a digital media can be considered as fraud and which not. In that case, there remains a concern of the act being misused or being used with political intention.
In this regard, the comment justice Hassan Arif made about post 1991 politics is highly significant. In his words, “Since 1991 we have noticed tremendous intolerance between the two political parties. They don’t believe they have any other way except detention, arrest or torture whenever there’s any kind of criticism.”
Justice Sheikh Hassan Arif didn’t mention any particular government regime. He spoke of the intolerant political culture following 1991. The problem is that pointing out government’s mistakes is often viewed with hostility while ‘conspiracies’ and ‘intrigues’ are discovered even in objective journalism. This happened during the regime of every single post-90 government.
It is journalists’ job to present the truth before the public. If journalists fall victim to harassment, torture, lawsuit and attack in doing that doing journalism becomes tough.
It is positive that bailable sections of the Cyber Security Act have been increased. But this does not mean that the law is not at risk of being used for political purposes. Law experts believe many crimes committed on cyber medium can also be tried under the existing law of the country.