January 31, 2012
DHAKA (AFP) - A Bangladeshi student has been arrested for allegedly posting obscene remarks about the father of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on Facebook, police said Tuesday.
Police picked up Al Nayeem Jubaer, 19, from his village at Horinakundu, 200 kilometres (120 miles) west of the capital Dhaka, on Monday after scores of angry ruling party activists stormed his house.
"We arrested him for making obscene remarks about the birth of Bangabandhu," local police chief Abul Khaer told AFP, using the nickname of Bangladesh's founding leader Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the father of Sheikh Hasina.
"We have learnt that Jubaer's father is a (opposition party) Jamaat-e-Islami official," he said, giving no further details about the remarks posted on Facebook. The post was not showing up on Jubaer's page on Tuesday.
According to Khaer, Jubaer told police he was a victim of password theft, alleging that someone broke into his account on the social networking site.
Earlier in January, a 29-year-old Bangladeshi was sentenced in absentia to six months in jail after posting a Facebook message that appeared to wish for the prime minister to die in a car accident.
Ruhul Khandaker, who has been studying since 2009 in Australia, will also be prosecuted for sedition and the courts have asked the foreign ministry to bring him back to the country.
