On the BBC News Hour this morning, I heard the disturbing story of Washiqur Rahman, a Bangladeshi blogger hacked to death by two men with knives. Rahman, who blogged under the pseudonym Ugly Ducking, was killed because of blog posts he wrote critical of Islamic fundamentalism. His murderers were students at a nearby Islamic seminary.
What is even more disturbing is that this is not the only recent attack on a blogger in the country. Last month, an atheist blogger, Avijit Roy, was similarly hacked to death while visiting a book fair in Dhaka, Bangladesh's capital.
My Gut Reaction: Seriously, isn't there a civil war these lunatics could go fight in? Syria or Yemen? At least then, they'd be fighting other people with weapons.
Analysis below the fold...
The origins of this spate of killings lies two years ago, when the Bangladeshi government arrested several bloggers at the behest of the country's Islamists, who felt under pressure after Abdul Kader Mullah, the head of the party Jamaat-e-Islami, was convicted of war crimes and bloggers called for his execution. In retaliation, they killed blogger Ahmed Rajib Haider, one of the bloggers calling for his execution.
Rather than act to protect other bloggers, the Bangladeshi government started to crack down on them, arresting four bloggers on charges of harming religious sentiment. Furthermore, as the News Hour reported, the government issued a list of bloggers considered sacrilegious.
I realize the Bangladeshi government probably has bigger concerns than protecting bloggers, but they could at least stop encouraging those who persecute bloggers.