The arrest of a social media content creator for sharing an innocuous cartoon sparked a heated debate in Parliament on Sunday after Hasnat Abdullah, the National Citizen Party MP from Cumilla-4, raised the issue in the House.
“We can't even imagine Hasan Nasim being arrested for sharing a cartoon after this election. We saw such arrests for insults during Hasina's regime,” he said.
Hasnat initially took the floor to express dismay over the practice of tabling of questions-and-answers, as MPs are being deprived of questioning ministers directly and thus parliamentary accountability is being undermined.
In response, Deputy Speaker Kayser Kamal, who was chairing the House, suggested the lawmaker submit a formal notice to seek remedy on the matter. Later the Chief Whip Nurul Islam Moni responded to Hasnat's claim.
Hasnat alleged that the question-answer session in Parliament has increasingly been reduced to a procedural formality, depriving MPs of the opportunity to ask supplementary questions.
“For a functional democracy and functional parliament, it is essential…If we cannot hold our ministers accountable, our space to speak is very limited,” he said.
The NCP lawmaker said such a trend risks turning Parliament into a one-sided platform, as lawmakers get just one to one-and-a-half minutes to raise issues of public importance, and even that limited scope is now being curtailed.
Arrest over cartoon sharing
At one stage, he stressed the need for discussion on current issues and raised the arrest of a content creator over sharing a cartoon.
Hasnat said arrests over cartoons or critical remarks were common during the tenure of Sheikh Hasina, but such incidents continuing in the current period were unexpected.
In the case statement, the complainant said that on April 11, he saw a Facebook post on “Patharghata.com”, which said, “Three whales were brought from the sea, two sharks are on the way, Inshallah -- everyone’s invited: Chief Whip”.
Although characterised as non-factual in the complaint, Chief Whip Moni had, in fact, said these lines in parliament on April 10.
Meanwhile, the case statement further said that multiple screenshots of different posts were sent to the chief whip’s WhatsApp number, with “an intent to blackmail”, from an unknown number.
BNP activist Nazrul Islam, a supporter of the chief whip, filed the case with Gulshan Police Station under sections 25 and 27 of the Cyber Security Ordinance, accusing some unnamed individuals. Hasnat questioned the inclusion of the sections.
“This section (Section 25)is meant for issues like sexual harassment. Where is sexual harassment in a meme share?” he asked, alleging that the law was being used to suppress dissent and that bail was not being granted.
Responding to the remarks, Chief Whip Nurul Islam Moni said if anyone had been arrested solely for drawing or sharing a cartoon critical of him or the government, “He should be released.”
Over tabling the Q&A session, he admitted it was “partially correct,” but explained that it was decided to allocate 50 hours for discussion on the President’s speech, of which only 12 hours had been used so far.
“To complete proceedings by April 30, questions are being tabled. However, if members agree to extend sittings until 10:00pm, the need for tabling questions will not arise. The government believes in accountability,” he said.
On the arrest issue, the Chief Whip clarified that general diaries (GDs) had been filed with the police station, not personally by him, but on behalf of the party, over widespread defamatory and misleading propaganda against party leaders.
He also said he had filed a complaint with the Election Commission and the returning officers seeking action against fake social media accounts spreading propaganda.
Referring to media reports, Moni said he had seen that a person was arrested over a cartoon and had even posted on Facebook about the matter.
“If someone has been arrested only for a cartoon, I request through the Speaker that he be released,” he said.
However, he added that authorities should also examine whether the person was involved in other offences, such as cybercrime or money laundering.
If it is only political satire or a cartoon, there is no complaint. But if there are other offenses, then the law will take its own course, he added.