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Bangladesh will tone down its Digital Security Act, criticised by many as a draconian curb on dissent, to allow bail for suspects and halt the jailing of journalists for defamation, the law minister said on Monday.

Journalists and rights activists have long demanded the repeal of the act to protect press freedom.

"Many sections of this act will be incorporated in the new Cyber ​​Security Act. Major amendments will be brought in some clauses," Law Minister Anisul Huq told reporters after a cabinet meeting.

Huq told parliament in June that there had been 7,001 cases filed under the act across the country since the enactment of the law in October 2018 until January this year.

The act combines the colonial-era Official Secrets Act with tough provisions such as allowing police to make arrests without warrants.

"I don't know whether the government is just (playing) a trump card under severe pressure both at home and abroad," said a journalist, who asked not to be identified for fear of reprisals.

"I hope it will not be old wine in a new bottle."

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has maintained tight control since coming to power in 2009 and has been accused by opposition groups cracking down on free speech, suppressing dissent and jailing critics. Her government has denied the charges.

Western governments and rights groups have also criticised the government for cracking down on anti-government protests.

Opposition groups have held large protest rallies calling on Hasina to step down and for the next election, due in January, to be held under a neutral caretaker government.

In May, Washington said it would restrict visas for Bangladeshis who undermine the democratic process at home, after accusations of vote-rigging and suppressing the opposition marred elections in 2014 and 2018. (Reuters)

Hindus and Muslims have clashed in the Indian state of Haryana a week after violence erupted during a Hindu procession in a Muslim neighbourhood, with a tomb and several vehicles torched and shops ransacked, police said on Monday.

At least seven people have been killed in the clashes, including the cleric of a mosque set on fire last week in the district of Gurugram.

The violence has been spreading with the latest beginning on Sunday and continuing into early Monday when several people set fire to a Muslim tomb, police officials said.

No one was hurt, they said.

"There have been three incidents of shops being vandalised in the district. Six people have been arrested," said Mayank Mishra, assistant superintendent of police in Panipat district, 200 km away from where the trouble began last week.

Tension between members of India's majority Hindu community and minority Muslims has periodically flared into deadly violence for generations.

The latest trouble comes as some members of the Muslim community say they are unfairly treated by the government of the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party, led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The government rejects the accusations.

Despite the latest trouble, the district magistrate of business hub of Gurugram lifted prohibitory orders in place since last week, saying that "normalcy has returned".

But for many Muslims the clashes have brought fear.

Some have left towns to return to their villages or have gone to live with friends and relatives in other areas, media has reported.

Some Muslims in Gurugram say men have been coming to their communities and threatening them with violence unless they leave.

"They told us to get out of our house or they'll burn it down. We are leaving because we're afraid," resident Amuta Sarkar, told the ANI news agency, in which Reuters has a minority stake.

In a related development, the Punjab and Haryana High Court stepped in on Monday to block the demolition of a community of several hundred dwellings in the district of Nuh, where the violence began last week, legal news website LiveLaw reported.

Police said the people who attacked the Hindu procession came from the settlement of "illegal" structures.

"The demolition campaign has been stopped," the Nuh administration said in a statement. (Reuters)

The Philippines told China it will not abandon a disputed shoal in the South China Sea after it accused China's coast guard of using water cannons and "dangerous" moves to prevent Manila from sending supplies to its troops occupying the reef.

Likening the Aug. 5 incident to a "David vs Goliath situation", Jonathan Malaya, a senior Philippine National Security Council (NSC) official said China's increased presence at the Second Thomas Shoal will not deter the Philippines' resolve to protect its position there.

"We will never abandon Ayungin Shoal," Malaya said, using its local name, as he dismissed China's call for Manila to remove its warship from the atoll, which was intentionally grounded in 1999 to reinforce the Philippines' sovereignty claims.

"We will continue to resupply troops in the grounded vessel as long as it takes," Malaya said in a joint news conference with the military, Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) and foreign ministry.

"It is our right to bring what is necessary to maintain the station and to be sure that our troops there are properly provisioned."

China said it had earlier told Manila not to send ships to the shoal and not to send "construction materials used for large-scale repair and reinforcement" to the warship after it learned of this recent supply plan, the Chinese coast guard said in a statement on Monday.

China's Foreign Ministry said that the Philippines' move violated China's sovereignty and the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea. It said the vessel was stopped in "accordance with the law."

It detailed a statement from the U.S. State department on the issue, which it said attacked China's legitimate maritime rights protection and law enforcement actions and endorsed the Philippines' "illegal provocative behavior, which China firmly opposes."

China claims sovereignty over almost the entire South China Sea, an assertion rejected internationally, while Malaysia, Vietnam, Brunei, Taiwan and the Philippines have various claims to certain areas.

The Chinese Coast Guard's use of water cannons on Saturday was not the first, as it also sprayed water at Manila's boats on a mission to supply food and water, for a handful of troops living aboard the rusty warship on Nov. 2021.

China's latest actions, which the Philippine military described as "excessive", undermine efforts to strengthen trust between Manila and Beijing, and underlines the "dire need" for a code of conduct, the foreign ministry's spokesperson said.

Ties between the Philippines and China have grown tense under Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr, with Manila pivoting back to its traditional ally, the United States, which has expressed its support for Manila and accused China of "threatening regional peace and stability."

Marcos said his country had relayed its complaint to the Chinese Ambassador in Manila, whom the foreign ministry had summoned.

No one was hurt during the Aug. 5 incident at the shoal, but one of the two Philippine boats, which were transporting supplies, failed to complete its mission. (Reuters)

Pakistan's former Prime Minister Imran Khan is being held in a small, dirty prison cell, one of his lawyer's said on Monday after being given access to the former cricket star in jail as he prepares to appeal against his graft conviction.

Khan, 70, has been at the heart of political turmoil since he was ousted as prime minister in a vote of no confidence last year, raising concern about stability in the nuclear-armed country as it grapples with an economic crisis.

Police took Khan from his home in the city of Lahore on Saturday and transferred him to a jail in Attock district, near the capital Islamabad, where a court convicted him of graft charges arising from the unlawful sale of state gifts and sentenced him to three years in prison.

"I met Imran Khan who told me that 'they've put me in a C-class'," Naeem Panjutha, the lawyer, referring to conditions in the jail where he said he spent just under two hours with Khan preparing paperwork for filing his appeal.

"It is a small room which has got an open washroom where he said there were flies in the daytime and insects in the night."

Khan's legal team was also appealing to authorities to secure him better conditions in jail, Panjutha told reporters in Islamabad earlier.

Political prisoners are entitled to better "B-class" facilities, including access to television, newspapers and books.

A government spokesperson and the prison authorities did not respond to repeated requests for comment on the conditions in which Khan is being held.

The graft conviction, which Khan rejects as politically motivated, likely means he will be disqualified from running in a general election due by November.

ELECTION CALL EXPECTED

Khan's arrest was the latest in a series of blows that have weakened his political standing after he fell out with the powerful military and his party splintered.

Ever since his ouster, Khan has been campaigning for a snap election and organising protests, which led to significant violence on May 9, raising tension with the military.

Khan accuses the military and his political opponents of plotting against him to block him from the election. The military, which has ruled Pakistan for about half its history, denies that.

Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif is expected to call this week for the dissolution of parliament paving the way for a general election by November.

The political crisis has played out alongside an economic one.

Last month, the International Monetary Fund's board approved a $3 billion bailout for Pakistan to help it tackle an acute balance of payments crisis and dire shortage of central bank reserves. (Reuters)