Anti-tobacco group alleges ‘Debi’ movie breached law

The film ‘Debi’, based on the first installation of Humayun Ahmed’s Misir Ali series, has violated the law by showing off smoking habit of the protagonist, an anti-tobacco group alleges.

Sushasoner Jonyo Procharabhijan or SUPRO (Campaign for Good Governance) in a statement condemned the release of the film in Bangladesh on Oct 19 despite objections by different anti-tobacco organisations.

Directed by Anam Biswas and produced by Jaya Ahsan, ‘Debi’ is a government-sponsored movie being distributed by Jaaz Multimedia.

“We from SUPRO have highly condemned the production of Debi cinema which is the sheer violation of tobacco control law and it does dispense with the very much pessimistic message in our society,” SUPRO Project Coordinator Mohammad Hasnain said in the statement released on Thursday.

The movie has 12 smoking scenes that have “widespread ramifications into our society”, he said, also alleging that the tobacco industry’s “heavy influence is highly evident” in Bangladesh’s film industry altogether.

“So SUPRO urges that government and its relevant departments should take immediate corrective measures against the film as per Law and stop the film broadcast as soon as possible,” Hasnain added.

According to the statement, the health warning words in Bangla with the following words "Smoking/consuming tobacco causes death” was on the left corner of the screen in small fonts, not the middle of the screen and not covered by one-fifth of the screen as per the law.

The law also stipulates showing the health warning tag covering full screen for 20 seconds but it was shown only for about 13 seconds, SUPRO said.

“The health warning was neither showed before and after the break nor was (it) displayed at the end of the movie which is a complete violation of the tobacco control law,” it added.

It also alleged the protagonist, a chain-smoker in the context of the story, smokes cigarette from a packet of a particular brand – Winston.

“It was an advertisement in favour of the company. In this packet, the pictorial warning was also found missing,” the organisation said.