Use of Internet, not to speak of blogging, continues to be restricted among enlightened people in Bangladesh, as more than half of its population has yet to get access to the modern connectivity. But the recent attacks on bloggers by the miscreants in Bangladesh put serious doubts about the ‘not so visible’ influence of the blogs among religious fanatics in the developing country.
Need not to mention that Bangladesh remains in the international media headlines and most of the time it is for wrong reasons. Lately the south Asian nation, bordering India and Burma, has attracted media attention for repeated slaughtering of bloggers and subsequent protests against the cruel actions in the name of religion.
By Nava J. Thakuria, Guwahati, Assam, India
The local media on 12 May 2015 reported the slaughtering of the third Bangladeshi blogger this year by masked assailants. The victim Ananta Bijoy Das (33), who was a banker by profession, was hacked to death at Subid Bazar locality of Sylhet city in northeast Bangladesh. At least four men chased Das as he was going to his office in the morning hours and attacked him with sharp weapons in full public view. Injured Das was sent to a local hospital, but the attending doctors declared him dead.
The Sylhet based talented blogger used to edit a Bengali periodical titled Jukti (meaning logic) and also wrote for Mukto-Mona, an Internet blog developed and moderated by late atheist blogger Dr Avijit Roy, who too faced a similar end three months back in Dhaka. Das, who also campaigned for banning the Islamist parties, was reportedly threatened by some religious extremists for his activities.
Prior to Das, religious fanatics killed the US based blogger Dr Roy (43) on February 26,where his accompanying wife Rafida Ahmed Bonya was seriously injured and another Bangladeshi activist-writer Washiqur Rahman Babu (27) on March 30 in the national capital. The only visible reason for their brutal murder was that they were free-thinkers and raised questions against the fundamentalists belonged to all religions including Islam.
Born to a Hindu family in 1972, Dr Roy completed his education in Bangladesh and later migrated to the USA. An engineer by profession and blogger by passion Dr Roy was a rational thinker and a popular science writer. He started Mukto-Mona (www.mukto-mona.com), a Bengali language blog (meaning free thinker) to propagate rationalism and promote secular writings.
Founded in 2001, Mukto-Mona gives space to analytical articles, essays, reviews and debates on relevant issues. Working with a mission ‘to promote science, rationalism, secularism, freethinking, human rights, religious tolerance and harmony amongst all people in the globe’, Mukto-Mona succeeded in drawing the attention of many like-minded thinkers including many distinguished authors, scientists, philosophers and human rights activists from all around the world.
“We are against all kinds of social injustices, religious and oppressive dogmas, doctrines, and discriminations. We critique everything that hinders people’s access to civil liberty, freedom, democracy and secularism. We take a strong stand against all kinds of human rights violations such as oppression of ethnic/religious minority communities and gender-based discriminations against women, homosexuals and others,” says the mission statement of the blog. A prolific writer Dr Roy, who used to receive death-threats from Islamist radicals for his activities, left behind his bedridden mother, aged father (Dr Ajoy Roy), a daughter and his wife, who survived the fatal attacks with severe injuries.
On the other hand, a travel agency worker Washiqur Rahman used to write about science and satirical pieces about religion. Blogging under pen-name Kutsit Haser Chana (meaning ugly duckling), Rahman often criticized irrational religious beliefs and practices, those of Islam too. He also advocated for reforms in various Islamic laws across the globe.
Bangladesh reported the first killing of a blogger in 2013, when Ahmed Rajib Haider, an architect by profession and another blogger by passion, was eliminated by miscreants at the peak of Shahbagh (Gonojagoron Mancha) movement demanding stringent punishments to war criminals. Thousands of Bangladeshi progressive youths assembled at the Shahbagh area of Dhaka city over many days asking for death penalties for the Rajakars, who killed millions of Bangladeshi freedom fighters and activists with the support from Pakistani forces.
Another blogger Asif Mohiuddin was targeted by suspected Islamists in March 2013, but the award winning writer-activist succeeded in escaping though receiving serious injuries. Mohiuddin also raised various questions about different aspects of Islam on the Internet and thereby invited enmity from religious fanatics. Some other victims of ultra religious fundamentalists in Bangladesh include Ziauddin Zakaria Babu, Arif Hossain Dwip, Jagatjyoti Talukder, Jafar Munshi, Mamun Hossain and Shafiul Islam.
Bangladesh, which is a Muslim dominated country with 160 million population, emerged as a sovereign nation after a blood-soaked freedom struggle (Muktijuddha) in 1971, where three million people lost their lives. When Bangladesh was born out of Pakistan in 1971 Muktijuddha, its founding father Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman introduced their nation as a secular democracy.
Amazingly, the Awami League government led by Sheikh Hasina in Dhaka in the present moment did not condemn the killings and even avoided expressing any official sympathy to the victim families. The Prime Minster, who assumed power in 2009 and was ‘re-elected’ in 2014, understood that many Bangladeshi nationals were sympathetic to ultra Islamists. Hence the government maintained silence over the media reports that a local Islamist outfit (Ansarullah Bangla Team) was responsible for the assassinations of the bloggers.
“You can do very little when your elected government doesn’t give you any support, especially when these kind of brutal murders are happening. The (Bangladesh) government has stayed completely quiet about this,” said Rafida Ahmed Bonya, who is presently undergoing treatment in USA, in an interview.
She also added that the Prime Minister called her father-in-law privately and tried their best to keep it a secret so that nobody knows that they have sympathized with us at all. On the contrary the Hasina government arrested a few bloggers ‘for criticizing religion to make the religious groups happy because that’s what they demanded’. “But when the bloggers are killed brutally by these religious fundamentalists, the government stays quiet,” exclaimed Dr Roy’s wife adding that the killing of her husband was a well-planned and choreographed global act of terrorism.
Even though the police response was halfhearted, the killings instigated huge public protests in Bangladesh. Series of rallies were organized in different parts of Bangladesh by its progressive citizens, mostly the Internet savvy youth. Sizable media space was also dedicated for the cause of concerns raised by educated bloggers.
All this was followed by international protests against the killing of bloggers in Bangladesh. From UN agencies to the USA, rights bodies to media forums, everybody condemned the killings. The UNESCO director-general Irina Bokova, in a statement from Paris, voiced grave concern about the safety of citizen journalists in Bangladesh following the killing of bloggers.
She also called on the authorities to ensure that those responsible for the killings were brought to justice adding that the punishing of such attackers is indispensable ‘to maintain free public debate and free expression by the media professionals and committed citizens alike’.
The United States also condemned the killing of bloggers expressing their ‘heartfelt condolences’ to the family and friends of those deceased. It highlighted that Bangladesh had seen a rise in attacks by religious extremists in recent times. Similarly, Human Rights Watch pointed out, “This pattern of vicious attacks on secular and atheist writers not only silences the victims but also sends a chilling message to all in Bangladesh who espouse independent views on religious issues”.
“The Bangladesh government must take urgent steps to ensure the security of critical bloggers in the country,” said a statement issued by New York based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). The international media forum also argued that the Hasina government should show its commitment by curbing this violent trend by immediately finding Das’s killers and bringing them to justice.
Meanwhile, a group of writers and journalists from different parts of the globe including Salman Rushdie, Amitav Ghosh, Swapan Dasgupta, Neel Mukherjee, Meghnad Desai, Rajdeep Sardesai etc came out together to express their grave concern over the escalating pattern of violence against bloggers in Bangladesh. In a letter to Bangladesh government, the group pointed out that ‘freedom of expression was a fundamental right under Bangladesh’s constitution and under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights’.
Earlier in the Indian city of Kolkata, over 500 authors and bloggers on May 19 demonstrated their anger against the killings of free thinkers in Bangladesh. Similarly, Journalists’ Forum Assam (JFA), a northeast India based media body, expressed serious concern over the killing of bloggers in Bangladesh and urged the Sheikh Hasina government to probe the matter authentically and book the culprits under the respective laws.
Amidst the heat of protests, a local court of Bangladesh has framed charges against eight accused criminals for their involvement in the killing of Rajib Haider (35), who was hacked to death at Mirpur locality of Dhaka on 15 February 2013. It needs to be mentioned that among those accused individuals, there is a group of university students with a cleric (Imam) from a Dhaka mosque. The police have also arrested a Sylhet based youth in connection with the murder of Ananta Bijoy.
Lately the Bangladesh government banned an Islamist militant group named Ansarullah Bangla Team (volunteer of Allah Bangla team) for terror activities. Issued on 25 May 2015, the government notification stated that the outfit was banned under the Bangladesh’s Anti-Terrorist Act, 2013. Prior to Ansarullah Bangla Team, five other extremist outfits namely Jamaatul Mujahideen Bangladesh, Hizb ut Tahrir, Harkatul Jihad Bangladesh, Shahadat e-Al-Hikma and Jagrata Muslim Janata of Bangladesh were outlawed for militant and anti-state activities in the country.
