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Bangladesh: Killers of atheist “think they have done a very good job for their religion”

Mar 31, 2015 4:57 pm By Robert Spencer

Killers of Oysiqur RhamanIs anyone in the free world who has power and influence going to stand up and denounce this savagery, and offer a defense of the freedom of speech, explaining why submission to Sharia blasphemy laws not only encourages this kind of barbarism, but paves the way to tyranny? Almost certainly not.

“Bangladesh Killings Send Chilling Message to Secular Bloggers,” by Ellen Barry, New York Times, March 30, 2015 (thanks to The Religion of Peace):

DHAKA, Bangladesh — When the steamy, clamorous evening had settled over this city, and Oyasiqur Rhaman had finished his day’s work at a travel agency, he would turn to one of his favorite pastimes: Poking fun at fundamentalist Islam.

Mr. Rhaman, 27, blogged under the name Kutshit Hasher Chhana, or The Ugly Duckling, and he specialized in sharp-edged satire. In one post, he adopted the persona of a self-important believer fielding questions from an atheist. (An example: “See, the captive women, impressed at the heroism of the Muslim fighters, used to engage in sex with them willingly. Don’t you see that it gave pleasures to them as well?”) He posted photos of sausages wrapped in pastries, labeled “pigs in a burqa.”

On Monday morning, after he left home for the travel agency, Mr. Rhaman was killed for what he had posted. Three young men — among them students of madrasas here in the capital and in Chittagong — surrounded him and sliced at his head with machetes, cutting deep gouges into his forehead, face and throat. His body was left on the pavement in a pool of congealing blood.

Two men were captured by local residents and handed over to the police, according to Mohammad Salahuddin, who heads the district police station. Those men said an acquaintance known as Masum had instructed them to kill Mr. Rhaman because “he made some comments against Islam” on social media, but that they had not read the comments themselves.

The killing closely followed the pattern of another five weeks earlier, when young men with machetes surrounded a secular blogger and author, Avijit Roy, as he left a book fair.

Mr. Rhaman took Mr. Roy’s murder to heart, changing his Facebook profile image to read “I am Avijit.” Over the next few days, he also mourned the 2013 killing of another blogger, Ahmed Rajib Haider, known online as Thaba Baba, and vowed to keep fighting.

“The pen will remain active, will continue till the death of your belief,” he wrote. “Get Islam destroyed, get Islam destroyed, get Islam destroyed.”

A writer using the name Biswaoy Balok, or Amazing Boy, responded in the comments section: “Son of a dog, you will also be killed.”

The deaths of Mr. Roy and Mr. Rhaman this month have sent a chilling message to the country’s secular bloggers, who say they are competing for the hearts and minds of young people exposed to oceans of material promoting conservative Islam….

Omi Rahman Pial, another prominent blogger from the same group, said he heard from five activists on Monday who said they were considering seeking asylum outside Bangladesh. Arif Jebtik, another activist, said that more “have begun shutting their blogs down” under pressure from their families.

It has always been risky for Bangladeshi intellectuals to criticize Islam, but when they fled the country, it used to be to avoid prosecution, not extremist violence, said Sara Hossain, a Bangladeshi supreme court lawyer.

“People who have lived in conflict zones will describe how you move from being a society where you attack people verbally and try to invoke the law against them,” she said. “Now our society is increasingly going toward one where you murder your enemies.”…

“Look, 93.2 percent of Bangladeshis are Muslim, and 80 percent of those are against what he wrote,” said Abdullah Fahim, 22, a business student at North South University, a private institution here. “I don’t know why our government gave him the liberty to write against Islam.”

Monirul Islam, a police official who is overseeing the investigation into Mr. Roy’s death, said the police have seen a pattern of attacks on writers and intellectuals. Those involved are often well-off, Internet-savvy young people, he said, and not the impoverished men who typically committed such crimes in the past. Mr. Islam said the attackers operate in small groups and have been active so far in eight to 10 of the country’s 64 districts.

“At this stage, their strategy is silent, targeted killing,” he said.

Though the killing of Mr. Roy happened more than a month ago in a crowded street full of witnesses, the police have so far made only one arrest — Shafiur Rahman Farabi, who called for him to be murdered in a Facebook post.

Mr. Islam said Mr. Farabi “disclosed some information,” and that the police have identified additional suspects, a group of men not directly connected with Mr. Farabi. He said he believed more than five people were involved, and that several of them probably attended North South University.

The authorities were luckier on Monday, when bystanders caught two men trying to flee the scene; a third man escaped. In an exchange with journalists, the two suspects seemed remorseless, according to Mohammad Jamil Khan, a reporter for The Dhaka Tribune.

“They were talking with me very happily, that they have done a good job by killing the blogger,” Mr. Khan told the BBC. “They don’t feel any guilt. They think they have done a very good job for their religion.”

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Filed Under: Bangladesh, Featured, free speech Tagged With: Kutshit Hasher Chhana, Oyasiqur Rhaman


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Comments

  1. Gary says

    Mar 31, 2015 at 6:26 pm

    “but an hour is coming for everyone who kills you to think that he is offering service to God. These things they will do because they have not known the Father or Me.”

    Jesus Circa 0032 A.D.

    • Georg says

      Mar 31, 2015 at 9:06 pm

      As an atheist (actually an agnostic who leans toward atheism, but what’s nuance these days?) I appreciate your posting this. To me, as “atheist”, Jesus was BEAUTIFUL! Really, a remarkable figure whom I admire deeply. It seems we don’t agree on all things, but we do agree that does not mean we act like jerks toward one another… This seems not to be the zeitgeist in Bangladesh, and for that, I’m thankful.

      • Georg says

        Mar 31, 2015 at 9:09 pm

        *thankful Christians who I’ve met are markedly and unusually kind; I won’t forget it, and I’m always thankful.

    • Champ says

      Apr 1, 2015 at 2:11 am

      Thank you, Gary …

      That’s from John 16:2-3

  2. American says

    Mar 31, 2015 at 6:37 pm

    I wonder when the war will start in earnest. The war is on, but only one side is fighting. The other side either believes there is no war, or their enemies can be appeased or reasoned with. There is no reasoning with Islam – submit or die.

    • Lioness says

      Apr 1, 2015 at 9:26 am

      Remember what Hussein Obama said: “we are not at war with Islam”. He forgot to tell us that Islam is at war with us.

  3. Kasey says

    Mar 31, 2015 at 6:39 pm

    What a curse religious belief has on Humanity!

    • Mirren10 says

      Apr 1, 2015 at 9:12 am

      Kasey has touted this invidious moral equivalence before.

      When she is asked to provide examples of any other religious faith murdering, torturing, raping, and thieving, whilst quoting from their religious tenets to justify it, why, “answer came rhere none”.

      She’s just a fool. I’d ignore her, if I were you.

  4. SAM says

    Mar 31, 2015 at 7:31 pm

    The religion of peace is very violant due to millions of misunderstanders of this wonderful religion in which no one is safe from death. What a nightmare for humanity!

  5. Telter says

    Mar 31, 2015 at 8:59 pm

    The West didn’t do anything when the athesit Salman Rushdi was threatened in a Western state, why should they care what about is going on in Bangladesh.

  6. Westman says

    Mar 31, 2015 at 9:01 pm

    The Prime Directive of Islam is the overthrow of all non-Muslim governments and religions by any means necessary. No Muslim is required to obey any man-made law that interferes with the directive. This is Da’wa-Jihad, the spreading of Islam by Jihad.

    These slimy retards were taught in Madrasas and Mosques that killing anyone who resists the spread of Islam is a great heroic act. They are simply stupid stooges for the evil men directing them.

    I would suggest the the same punishment that Islam prescribes for theives/Apostates/unbelievers, say, chopping off a hand and foot on opposite sides, followed by say, stoning. Perhaps potential Jihadists would think twice if they thought they would receive genuine Islam-method punishment for any religious-based agression against non-believers or Apostates.

    A possible future converstation:

    Q. How did you lose your hand and foot?

    A. I tried to kill an Apostate with a machete.

  7. Lucretius says

    Apr 1, 2015 at 2:03 am

    “…who say they are competing for the hearts and minds of young people exposed to oceans of material promoting conservative Islam….”

    “Conservative Islam.” I’m amazed this is in the New York Times. The editor must have nodded.

  8. John Magne Trane says

    Apr 1, 2015 at 3:01 am

    There are 11 or 13 countries that have the death penalty for atheism. All moslem.

    Imagine the outcry if there were a dozen countries which had capital punishment for following Mohammad?

  9. duh_swami says

    Apr 1, 2015 at 4:04 am

    They think they have done a very good job for their religion.”

    Everyone knows, or should know by now, that, ‘The future must not belong to those who slander the Prophet of Islam’…Rasool Obama…The ‘students were just making sure the blogger had no future…

  10. BC says

    Apr 1, 2015 at 11:19 am

    How will the Obamination explain this? They do not need any proof or evidence rumour is enough
    for the followers of this vile faith to kill anybody who is not one of them

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