Editorial
Misuse of legal instruments
Do not distort the law
Much As we abhor the idea of hartal and general strikes, it still happens to be a political instrument which has not been outlawed by the court as yet. And to the extent that the strikers are exercising their rights peacefully and without encumbering others who want to go about their business without let or hindrance, they must be allowed to exercise that right.
In this context we feel strongly too that it is for the government and the administration to ensure the safety and security of persons as well as private and public property. But seeing the police in action over the last 36 hours of the hartal called by the BNP, it appeared that the government is unwilling to give any political space to its opponents at all ostensibly for the sake of law and order. The police, we feel, have been rather proactive, to the extent that even journalists were barred from performing their professional duty in certain instances.
While violence in certain areas of the capital on the evening of 11 June must be condemned most strongly, and we wonder why none of those that perpetrated violence that evening has been hauled up as yet, denying the BNP the right to hold meetings or bring out processions is abnegation of their fundamental rights. And the justification the government has offered, that it is to preempt violence that such measures have been taken, only exposes its hardline attitude towards its opponents.
We are also constrained to say that the way the provisions of mobile courts were applied during the hartal is distortion of the law. It is alleged that innocents are being caught up in the tangle. As far as we know, meetings, processions and gatherings have not been banned, nor do we know of Section 144 being imposed in any part of the country. Under these circumstances the pretext of arrests of people, some of whom are not even party cadres, does not wash with the public. Let the legal experts dwell on its legality, but as far as we are concerned, a mechanism that does not allow one the chance to plead one's case, carries the risk of being misused, as has been the case this time.
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