awareness of the law. One of the important elements of fair trial is the speedy trial. But the fact is that thousands of under trials languishing in jail due to delay in the disposal of cases and mostly poor accused are victims of delayed justice. Article 19 Right to hold opinions and to freedom of expression 36. The Right to Information Act adopted in 2009 provides the right to receive information from any authority, and makes it obligatory for each authority to make readily available to the public all information relating to its decisions, workings or its completed or proposed work and with regard to publication and dissemination of information, no authority may conceal information or restrict easy access to the same. Reports issued by the authorities must be easily accessible, and free of charge to the general public. An Information Commission has been set up under the Act, to ensure compliance with the Act. A weakness of this law is that national security and intelligence agencies have been kept outside its purview. 37. Section 7 of the Act, provides the following grounds for exceptions regarding providing information: defence, national security and international relations, trade secrets or commercial or financial information which should be protected for effective management of the economy and commercial interests, privacy of an individual; physical security of an individual, intellectual property, advance information on exchange rate or financial policy changes, information protected by privacy law. Moreover, disclosure of information which hurts relationships with other countries, would obstruct justice, impede investigation and incite offense, information related to any purchase before it is complete, documents relating to reasons, deliberations and decisions to be placed before cabinet are also exempted from the operation of this Act. According to section 32 of the Act, the following security agencies have been exempted from the operation of the Act: National Security Intelligence; Directorate General of Forces Intelligence; Defence Intelligence Units; Criminal Investigation Department, Bangladesh Police; Special Security Force; Intelligence Cell of the National Board of Revenue; Special Branch, Bangladesh Police; and Intelligence Cell of Rapid Action Battalion. Thus, grounds for exception to the Right to Information are very broad and information is often denied to the people under the pretext of these exceptions. The NHRC believes that the exceptions should be narrowed down for maximum disclosure of information. 38. In recent times, several bloggers had been killed by Islamic extremists for expressing their free opinions. Bloggers Niloy Neel, Avijit Roy and Washique Rahmar were killed and these incidents show that serious threats to freedom of expression persist in the country. Bloggers have been critical of extremism and militancy. It is a chilling attack on free speech. It has triggered huge outrage. Very recently one publisher- Dipon, has been killed and several publishers have been wounded for publishing bloggers' writings allegedly by Islamic extremists. Bloggers, activists, rights bodies and different political parties have protested the killings. Demonstrations were held in different parts of the city, demanding speedy investigations and trials. There is also criticism against the government for its failure to find the killers of bloggers killed in the last few months. The NHRC recommends that freedom of expression, both online and offline should be protected and freedom of expression is essential for sustaining a pluralistic society. The NHRC also demands that perpetrators of such killings must be investigated and brought to the justice. 39. The Information Technology & Communication Act, 2006 has been amended by an Ordinance on 20 August 2013, and subsequently passed as law on 9 October 2013 by the 19