Judge rejects Islam defamation case against Shahbag bloggers

Chittagong: A Chittagong Court judge has rejected and discarded a religion defamation case filed against eight bloggers including Omi Rahman Pial, Arif Jebtik and Asif Mohiuddin.

The complaint case was filed by plaintiff M.A. Hamid, a cloth trader of Teri bazaar, at the court of Chief Additional Chittagong City Magistrate Mohammad Hasanul Islam. Hamid is son of Shamsul Islam of Boalkhali upazila. The eight bloggers mentioned in the case are Omi Rahman Pial, Arif Jebtik, Ibrahim Khalil Shobak, Asif Mohiuddin, Ashraful Islam, Ratul Debnath, Arifur Rahman and Manunur Rashid.

The lawyer of the plaintiff Advocate Abu Taher informed banglanews that the accused bloggers, through their blog posts defaming Islam had hurt religious sentiments of Hamid, citing that as the reason why the plaintiff had lodged the complaint case under section 295(A) of the Penal Code.  

Court sources have informed that the testament of the plaintiff was recorded by the judge in the afternoon after the complaint case was lodged. Later in the evening, the case was rejected and discarded by the judge considering the jurisdiction of section 203 of the Penal Code.

It is mentionable that the accused bloggers have become famous nationwide for their association with the Shahbag movement which began on the 5^th of February to demand for death penalty of all the accused standing trial at the International Crimes Tribunal (ICT) in Bangladesh. 

Source: banglanews24 (Time: 20:59 pm ,6 March,2013)