About a month and a half has passed since the arrest and detention of leftist student leader Sheikh Tasnim Afroz Emi. Emi, former vice-president of the Shamsunnahar Hall union at Dhaka University and a central vice-presidential candidate in the 2025 Ducsu election, along with two members of the banned Bangladesh Chhatra League (BCL), was sent to jail on March 7, reportedly for attempting to play Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman’s March 7, 1971 speech.
It began with Md Asif Ahmed Shoikot, former employment affairs secretary of BCL’s Shahidullah Hall unit at Dhaka University, who was arrested by Shahbag police for playing the speech on a loudspeaker on the afternoon of March 7. Later that night, Emi and several others tried to play the same speech in front of the National Museum in protest against Shoikot’s arrest, when they were accosted by two DUCSU representatives and handed over to the police. A case was filed against the three under the Anti-Terrorism Act, 2009.
The filing of this case under such a law raises a question that remains unanswered to this day: how did the public playing of a historic speech become an issue under anti-terror legislation, one of the harshest laws on the books? That question has grown more urgent since Emi and the others were denied bail for the third time on April 8.
If the police’s account of how the incident of March 7, 2026 unfolded is accurate, the first public justification offered was not terrorism, extortion, assault, or the revival of a banned organisation. It was the playing of a historic speech. Following Shoikot’s detention, the Shahbag station’s officer-in-charge reportedly said the speech was prohibited. But since when did the speech, or the act of playing it, become prohibited? If no such prohibition exists, why did the police act and speak as though it did?
Broader allegations and a heavier legal framing appeared later in the FIR of the case, which states that Emi and the other detainees attempted to resume the activities of a banned organisation, obstructed police from performing their duties, and tried to free Shoikot from custody. But this was not what the public heard at first, nor can playing a nationally significant speech be akin to resuming the activities of a banned organisation. Article 39 of the Constitution guarantees freedom of thought and conscience and, subject to reasonable restrictions imposed by law, freedom of speech and expression. Therefore, the state must explain how the law that was invoked was violated based on the facts presented so far. State actors, including the police, cannot impose a prohibition on a speech unless a law is enacted to that effect.
Moreover, the March 7 speech is not the private property of any political party. UNESCO recognised its significance because it is part of the history of Bangladesh’s birth. The state cannot treat its public playing as inherently suspicious simply because the politics surrounding it have become inconvenient. If, on the other hand, the alleged offences involve obstruction, unlawful mobilisation, or attempts to revive a banned organisation, the state must prove these claims and prosecute the suspects under appropriate legal provisions.
This is why the use of the Anti-Terrorism Act in this case seems so difficult to justify. The law was designed to address terrorism, organised violence, and acts that seriously endanger public safety. Once such charges are levelled, they significantly restrict personal liberty and make bail more difficult to obtain. While we have seen some high-profile detainees secure bail under the act in recent months, no such judicial discretion has been exercised in this case, once again raising concerns about the law’s potential for abuse as well as its uneven application.
While on the topic of bail, another recent case becomes relevant to this discussion. While not identical in facts or legal framing, it illustrates that bail remains a cornerstone of the criminal justice system, even in cases involving grave allegations. This is the case of Masum Khalasi, one of the accused in the killing of Dipu Chandra Das on December 18 in Bhaluka. On April 13, the Mymensingh jail gate opened for Masum, who was among those accused of chasing Dipu in a mob over allegations of “hurting religious sentiments”, forcing him to resign from his job, murdering him, and burning his body.
Police and court records show that Masum was among 12 defendants who gave confessional statements under Section 164 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC), admitting participation in the murder and the disposal of the body. Less than four months after his arrest, he was granted one year’s interim bail on a Tk 2,000 bond, prompting anger as well as creating a stark contrast that underscores how inconsistently the principle of bail is being applied across cases. The point here is not to equate Dipu Das’s case with Emi’s. They are not comparable. Rather, the point is to underscore that bail exists as an attainable legal option, even in cases involving the gravest of crimes. That reality makes the questionable anti-terror framing in Emi’s case even harder to ignore.
Given these realities, it has become critical that the authorities clearly state what law, if any, renders the public playing of the March 7 speech a punishable offence; explain how the acts that were alleged fall within the scope of anti-terror legislation; and allow the detainees the right to seek bail. If a murder suspect can avail of this fundamental aspect of a fair criminal justice system, then, in the public’s eyes, three students—particularly one who is not a member of a banned organisation—should not be denied bail.
If the state has a case against Emi, it should prove it in court. If there are compelling reasons to keep her in detention, those should be clearly articulated. But the repeated denial of bail—that too over simply playing a speech, and under one of the harshest laws in the country—risks evoking the memories of a time when such draconian laws were frequently used to suppress dissent and freedom of expression. This is not expected in post-uprising Bangladesh.
Arafat Rahaman is a journalist at The Daily Star. He can be reached at [email protected].
Views expressed in this article are the author's own.
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