The International Humanist and Ethical Union has issued a call to action on the Bangladesh situation. It’s gotten worse than I thought.
Islamist political parties have provided government with a list of 84 "atheist bloggers" and are demanding the death penalty for "insulting religion". Several bloggers have already been arrested and a government official promised to pursue all those listed.
Crowd at Islamist rally against atheist bloggers in Bangladesh
Last week, we said the government would be "walking into a trap set by fundamentalists" if they gave any succour to these demands. But they did. And on Friday a rally on the order of 100,000 Islamists marched in Dhaka (video) calling for a new blasphemy law and for the execution of the atheist bloggers. Earlier this year a prominent atheist blogger was murdered in a machete attack at his home, so we are also concerned about the safety in public of those accused of "blasphemy".
So there’s something else that would disappear in a world without gods.
It’s a call to action; so what are we supposed to do?
They have four simple suggestions: express your dissent online (I know you can do that!), rally and protest, contact your ambassador to Bangladesh and express your concerns, and contact the Bangladeshi embassy. They have suggestions at the link for how to do that.
You know, it’s getting very hard to argue that atheism is not a human rights issue when people are being jailed and murdered for expressing their conscientious beliefs.
I’m not sure this will help anyone here but just in case, the French Ambassy in Bangladesh can be contacted here:
http://www.ambafrance-bd.org/Nous-contacter
golly, if i were one of the atheist bloggers that those nice men of god are trying to murder for writing words on the internet…
might i be forgiven for having a phobia of islam? phobia is greek for ‘fear,’ which seems like an appropriate response.
I’m a bit ignorant of the big picture surrounding this story, but should we also lobby the ISNA and UMAA to issue press released denouncing this crap? It seems that we share a common belief that free expression is necessary given the reality of the world we share.
Only three messages? There should be three thousand on this. Taslima has been posting on this for months. We should be flooding these posts with solidarity for these human beings.
If anyone lives in the following cities or can reach them easily, I suggest organizing a group to picket the following Bangladeshi government embassies, missions or consulates. Even a small group can become effective if enough people see them and ask questions.
Consulate, west coast USA
4201 Wilshire Blvd, Suite # 605
Los Angeles, CA 90010
Consulate, east coast USA
211 East 43rd Street, Suite 502
New York, NY 10017
Embassy in the U.S.
3510 International Drive
Washington DC 20008
High Commission of Bangladesh in Ottawa
275 Bank Street, Suite 302
Ottawa, ON K2P 2L6
Canada
Australia
21 Culgoa Circuit
O’Malley, ACT 2606
Belgium
29-31 Rue Jacques Jordaens
1000 Bruxelles (Brussels)
France
39, rue Erlanger
75016 Paris
Germany
Dovestrasse 1
10587 Berlin
Italy
Via Antonio Bertoloni 14
00197 Roma (Rome)
Netherlands
Wassenaarseweg 39
2596 CG Den Haag (The Hague)
Sweden
Anderstorpsvägen 12, 1 Tr. 171 54 Solna
Stockholm
United Kingdom
28 Queen’s Gate
London SW75JA
Great idea, sadunlap! I wish I lived closer to those areas. Instead I settled for writing a message to the U.S. ambassador to Bangladesh and to the ambassador to the United States from Bangladesh.