The government will reform the digital security law on the model of the laws of the United States, the European Union (EU), and Britain. If the laws of those countries have stricter penalties for digital crime, they will be added to the digital security laws of those countries. Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina said this in an interview aired on Voice of America last Monday. Voice of America asked the Prime Minister what steps are being taken to protect journalists and citizens from misuse of the Digital Security Act. In response, the Prime Minister said, “The digital security law is not only in Bangladesh, but it exists in all countries of the world.” There is also in America, then there is in England, but in all countries, it is taken. He highlighted the importance of dealing with crime through digital means and said that digital law remains in all the countries of the world. It is the same in our country. However, we are quite vigilant about this. Even in our country earlier, when military dictators were in power, they could arrest any journalist without any summons. After I (the Awami League government) came, I stopped them and simplified them. The Prime Minister rejected the allegations of harassment of journalists. He said, ‘Known as a journalist, if someone tries to steal files in one of my ministries, should he be rewarded? If you do it in a civilized country, what action is taken against him? When caught red-handed, a person may not only commit such an incident once, but once caught, he commits the same incident again. The Prime Minister said that the journalist has now been made a ‘hero’ and awarded. The matter does not seem easy to him. Asked by Voice of America, the law minister talked about amending or reforming certain sections of the Digital Security Act. Will you proceed with that process? In response, the Prime Minister said, ‘I see what is there in digital law in America, what is there in England or what is there in European countries or what is there in other countries. With that, we will see where our law is lacking. The Prime Minister said, if we see that there is a punishment system that is tougher than our law, we will also reform it. We are bringing forward the American law to see what is there. We will see that. When asked about the initiative to bring BNP Acting Chairman Tariq Rahman back from the UK, Sheikh Hasina said whoever is the culprit should be sent back and executed. We are making our efforts in that regard. But it now depends entirely on the British Government. Will they keep the accused there and bring them up and allow the punishment to be executed? It depends on them. Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina said that she does not want to sit at the negotiating table with BNP again when asked whether there will be talks with BNP about the upcoming national parliament elections. If you sit with BNP, you can smell burnt people. The Prime Minister said, “But no one has any complaints about the 2008 elections.” At that time we had a 14-party alliance, while the BNP led a 20-party alliance. Their alliance got 29 out of 300 seats, but we got the remaining seats. From that, the position of BNP becomes clear to the people. Regarding the US ban on RAB, the Prime Minister said, ‘RAB was created only on the advice of America. RAB has been formed to improve the law and order situation including the elimination of militancy. When a democratic government is in power, we are running everything properly, it is incomprehensible to suddenly ban RAB. He said that the ban has encouraged militants. The Prime Minister said that America has done everything from RAB training. If a RAB member commits a crime, he is prosecuted. If someone in RAB is involved in a crime, we immediately bring him under the law, which is not the case in any other country, not even in America. This rule of law exists in our country.
