What the draft would do
Bangladesh is weighing amendments to its cyber law that would bring back much of what it spent seven years trying to get rid of. An Asia Times opinion analysis published on 22 September 2026 sets out three changes. Prothom Alo and the Oxford Human Rights Hub describe the same three. We could not confirm that the draft has been tabled in Parliament, and the details below come from press and commentary descriptions of the draft, not the draft's text.
- Section 26A (new) would criminalise publishing or spreading "unsupported or unverified information" capable of causing confusion, fear or social instability. The maximum penalty is ten years' imprisonment or a Tk 40 lakh fine. Prothom Alo reported on 30 July 2026 that the draft defines a "rumour" as unverified information that creates, or risks creating, confusion, panic, unrest or social instability.
- Section 25 would be widened to cover defamation, humiliation and bullying, including AI-generated material. The ceiling rises from two years and Tk 10 lakh to five years and Tk 20 lakh, according to Asia Times. Where the target is a woman or a person under 18, it rises to ten years and Tk 40 lakh.
- Section 8 would let authorities block or remove content first and obtain tribunal approval within three days.
The strongest case for the government
The government's case deserves a fair statement. Bangladesh has real online harms: sextortion, non-consensual intimate imagery, AI-made deepfakes and rumour-driven mob violence. Victims, most of them women, need fast takedowns and credible deterrents. A state that cannot act quickly when a fabricated claim sparks communal violence is failing its citizens. Prothom Alo reports that some policymakers support the changes on exactly these grounds.
Why this design fails its own goal
The harms are real, but the tools in the draft do not fit them.
"Unverified" is not a legal standard. Almost every breaking-news report is unverified when it is first published. A rule that criminalises "unverified information" that causes "confusion" or "excitement" hands prosecutors a charge that fits nearly any critical post or early report. Who decides what counts as verified, and when, is left to officials. The Oxford Human Rights Hub (21 October 2026) warns that this vagueness will chill public-interest reporting and push journalists and ordinary users towards self-censorship.
It conflicts with the international standard Bangladesh signed up to. Article 19(3) of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights allows restrictions on expression only when they are provided by law and necessary for specified aims. A ten-year sentence for "capable of causing" confusion is hard to call necessary or proportionate. Incitement to religious or ethnic violence reportedly carries a maximum of two years in the same draft, so sharing a rumour would be punished more heavily than incitement.
Block-first takedown reverses the safeguard. Under the draft, content can come down on an official's say-so and a tribunal reviews it afterwards. Three days is a long time in a news cycle, and for a political story removal may be the whole punishment. Review before blocking, or a short and strictly time-limited emergency exception, would meet legitimate urgency without making the executive the first and usual decider.
The repeal that came before
This is also a reversal of a recent reform. In May 2025 the interim government's Council of Advisers approved a Cyber Protection Ordinance that scrapped nine provisions of the Cyber Security Act 2023. Law Adviser Asif Nazrul said those provisions were used in "95 percent of the cases" filed. The ordinance kept narrower offences covering sexual abuse of women and children and incitement to hatred or violence, and it let a magistrate dismiss unmeritorious cases within 24 hours. That was a rare case of a South Asian government choosing to give up a speech-policing tool, and the 2026 draft takes it back.
The surveillance backdrop
The speech provisions sit alongside a wider build-out of state capability. A joint statement of 28 July 2026 from Access Now, Amnesty International, ARTICLE 19, Human Rights Watch and others notes that the Telecommunication Regulation (Amendment) Act, 2026 kept surveillance powers in section 97A while removing many safeguards. It adds that the Personal Data Protection Act, 2026 gives state authorities broad exemptions. In May 2026 the government also approved about BDT 94.95 crore for a National Telecommunication Monitoring Centre that includes content-blocking technology. Wide offences, fast blocking powers and monitoring infrastructure reinforce one another. Whatever the intent, people and platforms will price in the risk of being targeted.
What proportionate reform looks like
- Narrow the rumour offence to deliberate falsehoods that cause imminent, demonstrable harm, with an intent requirement and an explicit public-interest and good-faith defence for journalism, satire and parody.
- Keep defamation in civil law or confine it to a tightly drawn offence. Make it non-cognizable, so arrest requires a warrant.
- Require prior judicial authorisation for blocking, with a narrow emergency track and published block lists.
- Target the harms that are actually severe, such as sextortion, non-consensual imagery and child abuse material, with precise offences and survivor-centred takedown routes.
Platforms and start-ups should also take note. Vague liability for hosting "unverified" content pushes intermediaries to over-remove, which hurts users, small publishers and local creators who lack legal teams. Predictable, narrow rules are better for innovation and for safety.
Bangladesh has already shown it can cut back the most abused provisions. The draft should be tested against the 2025 reform it risks undoing, and Parliament should publish the text and take public comment before voting.