Atheists neither need nor want martyrs, so could the mindless fanatics of the world please stop creating them? Niloy Neel has been hacked to death with machetes in Dhaka.
Imran H Sarkar, head of the Bangladesh Blogger and Activist Network, told the BBC that Mr Neel had been an anti-extremist voice of reason.
“He was the voice against fundamentalism and extremism and was even a voice for minority rights – especially women’s rights and the rights of indigenous people,” he said.
He was on a list — these murderers have a long list of people they intend to kill, Neel knew about it, and had complained of being in fear for his life to the police. They did nothing.
All four men killed were on a list of 84 “atheist bloggers” drawn up by Islamic groups in 2013 and widely circulated.
It was originally submitted to the government with the aim of having the bloggers arrested and tried for blasphemy. The groups which wanted bloggers arrested told us they have no knowledge of who is behind the killings.
There is also a more complex backdrop to the killings. Islamic groups label all these bloggers “atheists” – and many did indeed use the internet to criticise those who believe in God.
But in fact, not all the bloggers were atheists. What they did have in common was they were part of a wider, secular movement that took to the streets in protest in 2013.
I am so glad that Taslima got out, but that still leaves almost 80 people living under the threat of butchery in Bangladesh.
You know you have won the debate when your opposition hacks you to pieces with a machete. Unfortunately you also lose your life.
Fuck this world.
Oh, I didn’t know the list of bloggers had actually been submitted to the government. So they know precisely which individuals will be chopped to pieces in broad daylight and are doing fuck all to protect them. And I refuse to believe they don’t know at least some of the members of these Islamic groups. I guess someone will have to insult Muhammad or rip up a Qur’an for the government to take action.
When shadowy groups murder leading members of a protest movement, can government thughs be very far behind ?
Sorry if my comment above appears trite. I’m also truly sorry and saddened that Imran Sarkar died. I did not know him. I never read anything he wrote. But from what I have read now he was a champion for secularism under extraordinarily hard conditions. I’ll remember him this way.
And just a few days ago, Saudi Arabia demanded that criticizing
religionIslam be a criminal offense in the entire world.How fucking dare they.
Another tragic waste of a life so that fanatics can appease their imaginary friend in the sky, and all the while the police knew about the threat and did nothing at all. As Christophe Thill says, willful inaction on the part of the authorities like this is only a few steps above a government campaign of repression. The only reason they aren’t bothering is probably because it is convenient for them to let extremists murder prominent atheists and secularists while they feign innocence.
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Saad @ 5;
Unfortunately, this is nothing new. Every couple of years the same group of majority Muslim countries attempt to get the UN to pass a resolution that would declare blasphemy – which the proposing states define as any criticism of religion whatsoever and in any circumstances – to be a crime in all UN member states. They always get declined, and then they always whine that this is indicative of institutionalized prejudice against Islam (and specifically Islam, thus giving the lie to their claims that this is about defending all religious beliefs, not that it would be much better if they were actually in earnest in that goal) in the international community.
It is your standard extreme theist authoritarian impulse, as seen in christo-fascist groups as well as extreme islamist movements – the fantasy is garnering the ability to impose their particular flavour of religious belief system upon everyone on the planet and, failing that, to silence any voice of dissent by whatever means are available in order to create the illusion that the acceptance of the imagined authority of their god (and by extension their own will and status) is unchallenged.
Bangladesh needs lots of help with coping with climate change (among many other problems) but it sure is hard to work up any desire to help them when their government quite willingly holds the door open for religion-inspired murderers.
Saad,
Agreed. Police basically know criminals have a hit list, it is by now evident that the list is real and being used and yet…. what is their excuse?
Let me FTFY: … that still leaves
almost 80over 140,000,000 people living under the threat of butchery in Bangladesh.Religion – answering words with edged weapons for over 10,000 years.
The brutal murders are repellant in themselves, but what effectively amounts to tacit state collusion in that violence is if anything even worse, and makes me fear for the future of Bangladesh.
moarscienceplz #6
In that case you really don’t want to know about what’s happening in the Maldives.
There are no words. This is beyond awful. What a horrible world we live in that people can be murdered just for their beliefs.
Christoher #3
Given that these people are opposing the existing government, I doubt they’re actually ‘behind’ so much as ‘standing right there’.
“Protesters calling for religious tolerance attacked with stones, threatened with death”
It’s like . . .it’s . . .just . . .
fuck.
Trying to imagine what it must be like to be a freethinker in a place like Bangladesh. What extraordinary courage Mr. Neel must have had. I’m in awe of people like him.
Governments act when money becomes a problem. Withdraw business, tourism from countries where government doesn’t bother to effectively work on the bare minimum protection of life of citizens.
The largest bangladeshi islamist party was declared illegal in 2013 and in the last election it participated in it won 4,6% of the vote.
Extremists keep their violent impulses in check only when they believe they have something to gain by pretending to be peaceful, law abiding citizens (that’s why the RNC refrains from openly advocating in favor of a violent coup against Barack Obama or the genocide of San Francisco): given that in Bengladesh, the violent fundies have nothing to gain by pretending to be zealous-but-peaceful activists (their faction is for all intent and purpose banned from politics and it lacked popular support prior to their ban), they don’t bother wearing a mask, and start to murder a lot of people in the hope that after a large enough slaughter, the survivors will just give up and submit to their whims.