Bangladesh
Blogging under life
A year after the murder of the American-bangladeschischem Blogger Avijit Roy are the perpetrators still walking free. Since then, three more bloggers have been killed. Many others have left the country.
The Ekushey book fair is an important event for all book lovers and intellectuals in Bangladesh. The venue was up to the last place filled, as the Blogger Avijit Roy and his wife Rafida Bonya the trade fair on the 26. February 2015 visited.
After spending some Bücherstände visited and some of the books signed and had, in which the existence of God doubts, he left the fair and went together with his wife to the car. Suddenly, the two of at least three young people with machetes attacked. The men chopped to Roy and killed him, his wife was seriously injured. The attack lasted just a Minute, in the middle of a busy street near a police checkpoint.
The Blogger Avijit Roy has been on the open road, brutally murdered
The murderers are on the run
A year since the brutal murder has passed and still there are, according to the police, no trace of the perpetrators. Roy was an advocate for freedom of expression in Bangladesh, he founded the Blog, Mukto-Mona, a platform for free thinkers.
Monirul Islam, head of the Abti-Terror Department of the police of Dhaka believed that an Islamist group with the name “Ansarullah Bangla Team” committed the murder. The group had on the evening of the fact taken on the responsibility.
“We have no witnesses found who were willing, a sworn statement about the murder of Roy to make,” says Islam. “Some have spoken with us, but no one was able to the faces of the murderers to describe.”
Roy’s wife Rafida Ahmed Bonya has, during the fact, a thumb is lost. She has erntshafte doubts about the investigation. “No one from the Bangladeshi government, none of the investigating authorities has contact with me,” she says, compared to the DW.
The police has at least eight Suspects arrested, but so far, no one has a confession to made.
Bloggers flee from Bangladesh
After the murder of Roy, three other bloggers and a publisher of his books within a few months, have been killed: Washiqur Rahman Babu, Ananta Bijoy Das, Niloy Neel and Faisal Arefin Dipon. Islamist groups have in social networks to the acts of known.
You say that bloggers have Islam criticized – an act that you will not tolerate. All the victims were supporters of Roy, which suggests that the murderer deliberately targeting people apart, in connection with his Mukto-Mona Blog. The Blog contains numerous texts on atheism, reason and science.
Rafida Bonya Ahmed says, it’ll go here not just that fanatics violently to criticism of Islam to respond. It was also a struggle between secularism and extremism. “In history, extremists always of scientific facts and secular ideas felt threatened,” she says. The Mutko-Mona Blog was a pioneer in the blogger scene of Bangladesh have been and have done just that. “It is easy to understand why us as their main enemies to watch.”
There is a struggle between Secular and extremist, says Rafida Bonya Ahmed
The series of murders has led to numerous bloggers have left the country, reports the atheist Blogger Asif Mohiuddin. “At least 28 of the bloggers are from Bagladesch fled in the last year. A further 40 to think about because of the constant worry to be attacked.”
Mohiuddin came in 2013, after Germany, after he by religious fundamentalists in Dhaka and attacked because of criticism of the Islam of the government was arrested. His Blog was banned, what it ultimately caused to leave the country.
“Some of the international organizations to help bloggers from Bangladesh who desperately need help.”
International Support
To this Blogger’s support, took place on 21. February a “Solidaritätsbuchmesse” held in the Netherlands with discussions between bloggers from Bangladesh and European legal experts.
Jakob de Jonge, Director of the Hague Peace Project and one of the organizers of the event says, it was unacceptable, what with free thinkers in the South Asian country be done. “We will do everything in our Power to do, to get more space for free expression in Bangladesh to create,” he says.
Legal experts who participated in the event have called upon the international community, the bloggers, and support the freedom of expression in the 160-million-Einwohnerstaat ensure. Aura Freeman of Amnesty International says that in Dhaka, the international obligation to have the freedom of expression to protect.
“There were regular attacks on those exercising their right to freedom of expression to exercise,” she says. “So the government can meet their responsibilities, we have to exercise international pressure on them across multiple platforms.”
Exilblogger, however, have doubts that the Situation in Bangladsch in the foreseeable future improved. They do not believe in the support of the major parties of the country.
“You believe, would you agree to the pious Muslims cost,” says a well-known Blogger who wished to remain anonymous. “Our Image as bloggers is attached so that in a short time will not recover.”