The extraordinary assurance that no journalist will be arrested immediately under the Digital Security Act (DSA) without a summon seems to be an attractive solution to the concerns and fears created by its random abuse to suppress critical voices in the media. Law Minister Anisul Huq gave this assurance to the members of the Overseas Correspondents Association of Bangladesh (OCAB), when he said that journalists would be getting an opportunity to seek bail in court. In a significant shift in the government’s position on this controversial law, he had also acknowledged that there were incidents of misuse and abuse of the Digital Security Act. Though his sublime remarks made an eye catching headline, the legal and moral questions of such exceptionalism should not be ignored.    It should be noted that this controversial law was passed in a hurry, just before the 2018 elections, brushing aside the concerns of journalists and human rights activists. Those apprehensions of wide...