Home minister describes those using Facebook via proxy routes in Bangladesh as ‘very innovative’

Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal has praised those using Facebook via proxy routes despite the networking site being currently blocked in Bangladesh.

Staff Correspondentbdnews24.com
Published : 24 Nov 2015, 02:43 PM
Updated : 24 Nov 2015, 04:05 PM

But, State Minister for Posts and Telecommunications Tarana Halim had threatened surveillance on them.
 
The government shut down Facebook and several other social networking apps last week to cut the communication links of saboteurs and militants but many users have found their own means of using them.
 
Tarana Halim said on Saturday: “Those who are using the Facebook and several apps are not using any safe means for doing so. As a result, we’re able to monitor them.”
 
But when reporters at the Secretariat on Tuesday sought his comment on the issue, the home minister said in good humour: “Our young people are very innovative. They are the country’s future. They are trying out this means or the other.”
 
“They have brains, and are using it to do many things,” he said, but promptly advised the ‘young’ not to circumvent rules.

Facebook and certain apps were blocked ahead of war criminals Salauddin Quader Chowdhury and Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mujahid’s execution with the ministers saying they would remain so for an indefinite period.

When asked about a time for their restoration, Kamal said: “You (a journalist) are saying this! Before doing so, see it has been shut in China because there was a need for it. They have shut it down in France because they felt the step was needed. We have felt the need to block it now, so we have done it.”

But he added the arrangement was temporary. “I had said it was a temporary measure on the very first day. I will lift it any moment.”

Intelligence reports had said militants were using Facebook, Viber and other applications to communicate among themselves, making it difficult to track them. 

Kamal repeated his claim that there was no organisational activity of the Islamic State (IS) in Bangladesh.

In reply to a journalist’s query, he said: “If you talk about the IS, I will say with confidence there is no organisational presence of anything like the IS.

The minister said certain militant groups known as JMB, Ansarullah Bangla Team and others used to surface once.

He went on to assert that groups like them did not exist anymore. “We have caught them all, be it the Ansarullah Bangla Team or the JMB. We have curbed their activities."

He said these militants groups, though known by different names, had a common root.

“If you look for their origin, you will find their growth directly helped the Jamaat-Shibir and organisations patronised by war criminals.”

Kamal was asked how he would explain Jamaat-e-Islami chief Motiur Rahman Nizami being branded a ‘murtad’ on the Islamic State website. Kamal said: “I will answer the question this way—the root is the Jamaat-Shibir. I don’t know who is with whom at this moment. All I want ot say is the root is the same.”

The home minister urged people not to be worried about the issuance of machine-readable passports (MRP) at a time when hand-written citizenship documents were on their way out across the world.

“We can print 20,000 passports each day. But the demand has dropped at present. So we don’t have to print so many daily.”

Bangladeshis abroad were able to get their MRPs within seven days through the country’s embassies, he added.