The International Crimes Tribunal (ICT) today ordered authorities concerned to remove all the ‘hate speeches’ of ousted prime minister Sheikh Hasina from social media and take necessary steps to stop dissemination of such speeches in future in all types of mass media.

The two-member tribunal led by Justice Md Golam Mortuza Mozumder passed the order, allowing a plea of the prosecution.

“The tribunal asked secretaries of the ICT Division and Ministry of Information and Broadcasting and Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC) to execute the order,” Prosecutor Advocate Abdullah Al Noman told BSS.

The prosecution earlier filed the petition, pleading to remove and restrict all types of hate speech and incitement by the ousted prime minister, which may intimidate the witnesses or victims or hamper the process of the proper and effective investigation.

“It is to be noted that we are not talking about restricting her political statements here. We are talking about hate speeches as per the criteria set in Rabat Principles,” Advocate Noman said.

“As per the Rabat Principles, to assess whether any expression or statement can be regarded as a criminal offence, the following elements must be considered – context, speaker, intent, content and form, extent of the speech act and likelihood,” he added.

Earlier Prosecutor Gazi MH Tamim briefed the newsmen in this regard, saying not only in Bangladesh, making hate speech is a criminal offence in every law and every country around the world.

“Sheikh Hasina has made speeches, where she was heard saying she got the license to kill 227 people as the same number of cases were filed against her. She was even heard giving threats to the victims and witnesses of the cases against her, through these speeches,” Advocate Tamim said.

-BSS.