Legal action can be taken against a president once they have left office, the prime minister’s adviser on information and broadcasting, Dr Zahed Ur Rahman, has said.
He made the remarks at the weekly press briefing in the conference room of the Press Information Department on Tuesday. The department’s principal information officer, Syed Abdal Ahmed, and a joint secretary of the information and broadcasting ministry, Dr Md Alam Mostafa, were present at the briefing.
Asked by a journalist about the legal protection of a former president, Dr Zahed Ur Rahman said that under the law no legal action can be taken against a president while in office, but that legal action can be taken against any person after they leave office, and that the judiciary is conducting its work entirely independently.
The adviser said: “Although many have a positive impression of the 2008 election, various statistics show that in many centres thousands of votes were cast in less than a minute. A proper investigation is therefore needed into every one of the 2008, 2014 and 2018 elections. Those elections, with their overnight irregularities, pushed the country’s system of governance and its democracy to the brink of destruction.”
Referring to the unprecedented fraud of 2018, when voting took place at night for a poll due the following day, he said criminal and other legal action must be taken against officials and individuals at every level who were involved in electoral offences.
Press freedom and the murdered journalist couple
On the murder case of the journalists Sagar Sarwar and Meherun Runi, Dr Zahed Ur Rahman said the investigation had been drawn out under the previous government for want of good faith. The present government, however, is committed to ending any culture of impunity, he said.
He added that just as the investigation into the murder of Sohagi Jahan Tonu has gained fresh momentum, work is under way to ensure impartial investigation and proper justice in the Sagar-Runi murder and in all past and pending criminal offences.
Speaking of support for journalists killed and injured in the July uprising, he said that beyond ordinary benefits, special assistance is being arranged for those killed and injured under the information and broadcasting ministry’s Journalists’ Welfare Trust. Work is also continuing on a plan to make a special documentary recording journalists’ extraordinary sacrifice in the movement.
On the gas and energy crisis in the country’s industrial sector, the adviser said the situation had been created by the previous government’s mistaken policies, the favours it granted to oligarchs, and its reliance on imported LNG instead of exploring for domestic gas. Steps are being taken to increase the use of Bhola gas quickly and to extract new gas offshore in order to overcome the crisis, he said.
On the coming local government elections, the adviser said the government is committed to beginning the formal process within 2026. Once the first stage begins, completing elections at every tier in phases may take up to a year.
He said the opening and commemorative programmes of the July Museum will be finalised within the scheduled timeframe to mark the anniversary of the July uprising and to make the historic memory of 5 August enduring.
বাংলায় মূল প্রতিবেদন পড়ুন · Read the original Bengali report