Updated: 19:45 (BDT), 23 Nov 2025

Court 1 of the International Crimes Tribunal today issued a suo moto ruling – that is an order it has made which is not in response from an application from one of the parties – relating to contempt of court.

It stated the following* 

“It has come to the notice of the tribunal that pictures of judges of this Tribunal are being published in different media in  fabricated and manipulated shape and pose, which are derogatory and contemptuous to the judges of the tribunal and the tribunal itself.

In social media and TV channels as well in print media, statements and discussions are being made, in supression, in exaggeration and in curtailment of,  existing facts in law and  record without due reference.

The citizens of the country have the fullest freedom to speak, write and think freely, but subject to the provisions of law of the land. The media as well has got the absolute right to publish, comment or criticise anything relating to judgment/order of the tribunal or any law but the same  should be within the purviews of the prevalent enactments and the constitution of country.

Therefore it is deemed condign to take necessary measures so that derogatory, humiliating or contemptuous, pictures, information, comments, statements relating to the Judges and this Tribunal in any form in any media henceforth are not published.

Under the preceding facts and circumstances, the Secretary, Ministry of Information of the Peoples Republic of Bangladesh and and Chairman of BTRC are hereby directed to take necessary measures to remove all the pictures, derogatory or humiliating and contemptuous information, comments and statements as aforesaid from all sorts of media, inclusive of social media and to ask the media to write and do everything freely without harming the image, status, and dignity of the Tribunal and with without infringing the law.”

The Tribunal went to state that 3 December 2015 should be fixed for submitting a report of compliance.

Although the order argues that

“The citizens of the country have the fullest freedom to speak, write and think freely …. [and] the media as well has got the absolute right to publish, comment or criticise anything relating to judgment/order of the tribunal .”

It goes onto say that these rights are subject to:

“ the purviews of the prevalent enactments and the constitution of country.

At one level this is not a contentious point for the Tribunal to make – everything must be done within the law. However the law on contempt in Bangladesh is broad and uncertain, so giving the media this warning is not that helpful without providing clear guidelines on what is and what is not permitted.

So, without doing this, this order might have an unnecessary censoring impact.

I would suggest that at a minimum, the Tribunal should make clear that reasoned criticism – even though it might embarrass the Tribunal – should be clearly permitted. This order does not make that certain.

One thing must be certain, however. This Tribunal does not want to repeat the same ridiculous controversies that the ICT got into in 2013-5 in relation to contempt.

In addition, in light of the reality of social media, and the difficulty in regulating it, the Tribunal may also be advised to grow a thick skin and ignore even the offensive and belittling commentary and imagery and just focus on conducting the trials to the best of its ability.

* This order is now based on a copy of the written order.