Tuesday, May 12, 2015

Bangladeshi Blogger Ananta Bijoy Das Hacked to Death for Criticizing Islam

After jihadists attacked a Muhammad cartoon exhibit in Texas, the media blamed Pamela Geller for provoking Muslims to violence. Yet in other countries, we see the harsh consequences of not standing up for freedom of speech. Bangladeshi blogger Ananta Bijoy Das, for instance, has been hacked to death for criticizing Islam, and police have no idea how to stop the wave of violence against critics of Islam. Will the media continue blaming bloggers for provoking Muslims?
Ananta Bijoy Das
CNN—The attack on bloggers critical of Islam has taken on a disturbing regularity in Bangladesh with yet another writer hacked to death Tuesday.

Ananta Bijoy Das, 32, was killed Tuesday morning as he left his home on his way to work at a bank, police in the northeastern Bangladeshi city of Sylhet said.

Four masked men attacked him, hacking him to death with cleavers and machetes, said Sylhet Metropolitan Police Commissioner Kamrul Ahsan.

The men then ran away. Because of the time of the morning when the attack happened, there were few witnesses. But police said they are following up on interviewing the few people who saw the incident.

"It's one after another after another," said Imran Sarker, who heads the Blogger and Online Activists Network in Bangladesh. "It's the same scenario again and again. It's very troubling."

Das' death was at least the third this year of someone who was killed for online posts critical of Islam. In each case, the attacks were carried out publicly on city streets.

In March, Washiqur Rahman, 27, was hacked to death by two men with knives and meat cleavers just outside his house as he headed to work at a travel agency in the capital, Dhaka.

In February, a Bangladesh-born American blogger, Avijit Roy, was similarly killed with machetes and knives as he walked back from a book fair in Dhaka.

The three victims are hardly the only ones who have paid a steep price for their views.

In the last two years, several bloggers have died, either murdered or under mysterious circumstances. (Continue Reading.)

3 comments:

nacanacazo said...


I added to your list from the Draw Mohammed entry:

Ananta Bijoy, Avijit Roy, Washiqur Rahman, Salman Rushdie, Theo Van Gogh, Lars Vilks, Molly Norris, Stépha, Ananta Bijoy Dasne Charbonnier, Jean Cabut, Philippe Honoré, Bernard Verlhac, and Georges Wolinski

akairey said...

Ahh.....the "religion of piece" strikes again.

Unknown said...

https://petitions.whitehouse.gov//petition/unite-world-against-terror-support-corrective-justice-based-facts-not-condemnation-or-violence-based-belief