An interesting news came out of Afghanistan today. A senior judge was covertly tape recorded while asking for bribe and proposing to marry a woman whose divorce case he was handling. The fallout of the news — whole world in focused on the judge, starting from Afghan president to the Anti corruption guru– every one promised to take action. And no one questioned how illegal it was to secretly tape record a senior sitting judge while he talks about his case.
Several years ago a high court judge in Bangladesh was secretly tape recorded asking for bribe. Great hue and cry ensued. The judge was removed from his position by the president.
Yet no one questioned or bothered with the illegality of secretly tape recording a judge talking about a sub-judis matter.
However when another judge, Nizamul Huq Nasim of Bangladesh International Crimes Tribunal — dealing with a much much more serious matter, where at least eight lives are at stake– is tape recorded while discussing about his case, the dominant thought process of people around me is focused about the technicality and illegality of the hacking. Very few people seems bothered with the crime the judge just committed. This, this or this are some examples.
If one asks me — this judge’s crime is much worse than the crimes of the Afghan judge or the corrupt judge of Bangladesh High Court. We should not and cannot divert the focus away from the crime to the messenger.
December 13, 2012 at 7:48 pm
Hear hear. Amader shushil shomaj ar taader newspaper duitar silence illustrates exactly what you mean.
December 14, 2012 at 2:39 am
But maybe their silence also reflects fear of crippling lawsuit. I feel the early lawsuit against Bergman/Kabir/New Age was a shot across the bow which cowed many people. NA fought the case, but it was a harrowing and time-consuming process. How many people would want to go through that. Mahmudur Rahman will probably be in court for weeks, how many people will want to take that blow?
December 14, 2012 at 1:12 pm
There are too many complicit in the production of the ICSF Territorial Army, Nirmulism and Seculib lala land with established position in the public sphere for there to be the degree of reflection necessary.
Notice Mahfuz Anam, churning out the same editorial narratives offsetting this failure to move with good coverage of the killing of random innocent bystander.
here you go, have some Adaptation hushmoney
December 15, 2012 at 3:07 am
http://www.startribune.com/printarticle/?id=182732661
January 27, 2013 at 5:15 pm
few of my last posts did not go through. Any glitch?