Blasphemy law in Bangladesh

The People's Republic of Bangladesh went from being a secular state in 1971 to having Islam as the state religion in 1988. Despite its state religion, Bangladesh uses a secular penal code which dates from 1860—the time of the British occupation. The penal code discourages blasphemy by a section that forbids "hurting religious sentiments." Other laws permit the government to confiscate and to ban the publication of blasphemous material. Government officials, police, soldiers, and security forces may have discouraged blasphemy by extrajudicial actions including torture. Schools run by the government have Religious Studies in the curriculum.

Under Section 295A of Bangladesh's Penal Code (1860), any person who has a "deliberate" or "malicious" intention of "hurting religious sentiments" is liable to imprisonment.

Under clauses 99(a), (b), (c), (d), (e), and (f) of The Code of Criminal Procedure, "the government may confiscate all copies of a newspaper if it publishes anything subversive of the state or provoking an uprising or anything that creates enmity and hatred among the citizens or denigrates religious beliefs. The magistrate can send police with a warrant to the place where these newspapers are found. The aggrieved person can take the matter to the notice of the high court." Under clause 108, "a magistrate can ask for an undertaking from a person who has made an attempt to express anything seditious or create class-conflict." Clause 144 allows a magistrate to forbid a journalist from going to his place of work.

In 1993, Motiur Rahman Nizami, Secretary General of the Jamaat i Islami—the largest Bangladeshi Islamic party, tabled in Parliament a "blasphemy bill." Modeled on existing Pakistani laws, the bill proposed to add to the Penal Code two sections: 295B and 295C. Section 295B would have created the new offence of "insult to the Quran," and would have had a maximum sentence of life imprisonment. Section 295C would have created the new offence of "insult to the Prophet," and would have had a maximum sentence of death.

In 2004, a private member's bill, which was never tabled in Parliament, proposed that any speech, or gesture, by words or otherwise, or any picture, film or artwork, or behavior, which insults any religion, or which insults the Quran, the Sunnah, or Sharia would be punishable by two years’ imprisonment.

In December 2008, Jamaat i Islami promised, if elected to govern, to introduce a "blasphemy law" like Pakistan's.

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