Welcome to H&C,,, where I aggregate news of interest. Primary topics include abuse with "the church", LGBTQI+ issues, cults - including anti-vaxxers, and the Dominionist and Theocratic movements. Also of concern is the anti-science movement with interest in those that promote garbage like homeopathy, chiropractic and the like. I am an atheist and anti-theist who believes religious mythos must be die and a strong supporter of SOCAS.
There's been a series of violent murders of Bangladeshi internet
bloggers, accused of being atheists by Islamist groups - with four
killed so far this year. In the videos and stories below, you can meet
the people living through this situation.
“Our weapon is [the] pen, and we can use it without hurting anybody. We
just want to make people conscious about their rights. So that nobody
can use them to fulfill bad intentions.”
Ananya Azad
An Islamic militant group in Bangladesh
has issued a hitlist of secular bloggers, writers and activists around
the world, saying they will be killed if its demands are not met.
The list will raise fears that Islamic militant violence within the
unstable south Asian country could take on an international dimension.
The targets in the list include nine bloggers based in the UK, seven
in Germany, two in the US, one in Canada and one in Sweden. Some are
Bangladeshi citizens living overseas. Others are dual nationals or
citizens of the western nations.
The list was issued in a statement on the internet by the Ansarullah Bangla Team (ABT), a group that has been blamed for a series of murders of bloggers and activists
in Bangladesh over the last 18 months. All those killed have been
prominent critics of extremist religious doctrines, especially in Islam.
The acting leader of the ABT and two close associates were arrested earlier this month in Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh, on suspicion of involvement in the murder of a secular blogger earlier this year.
Individuals on the new list have told the Guardian they intend to keep writing and blogging.
“Our weapon is [the] pen, and we can use it without hurting anybody.
We just want to make people conscious about their rights. So that nobody
can use them to fulfill bad intentions,” said Ananya Azad, a
Bangladeshi blogger who has been forced into exile in Europe and is on
the list.
There has been no previous indication that the ABT was targeting
bloggers overseas and the list will worry security authorities in Europe
and the US.
Bangladesh police Tuesday charged five suspected Islamist militants
with murder over the killing of an atheist blogger, one of four secular
writers hacked to death this year for writing against fundamentalists.
Police
brought the charges — the first in any of the four murders this year
— in a Dhaka magistrates court, which will now decide whether to open a
trial or order further investigations.
"We've submitted a charge sheet against five people for the murder of
blogger Washiqur Rahman. The five were charged with murder," Dhaka
police spokesman Muntashirul Islam told AFP.
"They
include an organiser of the Ansarullah Bangla Team (ABT) and four others
who are its supporters," he said, referring to a banned local Islamist
militant group which police have blamed in all four murders.
Washiqur Rahman, 27, an atheist blogger who wrote under a pen name on
Facebook against religious fundamentalism — especially Islam and
Islamist radicals — was killed near his home in Dhaka in March.
So there has been progress on three of the assassinations, good,,,
Authorities in Bangladesh said Tuesday that they have
arrested three men, including a British citizen, for their involvement
in the murders of two secular bloggers.
The three are suspected members of the Ansarullah Bangla Team, a
banned Islamic militant outfit, said Maj. Maksudul Alam, a spokesman for
the country's Rapid Action Battalion. Bangladesh banned the group in
May after police accused its members of threatening and killing bloggers
and writers.
Alam said one of the arrested men, Touhidur Rahman — a British
citizen of Bangladeshi origin — was the mastermind and financier of the
attacks on bloggers Avijit Roy and Ananta Bijoy Das, who were killed
earlier this year.
The suspects were arrested Monday night in raids in Dhaka,
Bangladesh's capital, and appeared with authorities at a news briefing
Tuesday.
Mufti Mahmud Khan, the head of the battalion's media wing, told
reporters that while Rahman was the main planner of the killings,
another suspect who was arrested, Sadek Ali, acted as a bridge to
communicate with Mufti Jasim Rahmani, the alleged head of the militant
group. Ali, 28, became involved with Rahmani while working as a printing
press worker, Khan said.
So this is definte progress on Neel's assassination,,,
Bangladesh police say they have
arrested two suspected members of a banned Islamist group over the
killing of atheist blogger Niloy Neel.
The two men were suspected
members of Ansarullah Bangla Team, a militant group accused of links to
previous attacks on bloggers, police said.
Mr Neel was hacked to death by a gang armed with machetes at his home in the capital Dhaka last week.
It was the fourth such killing of a secular blogger this year.
Police say the two men being held are key suspects in Mr Neel's murder.
Mr Neel's attackers had tricked their way into his home by saying they were looking to rent a flat.
Bangladesh is officially secular but critics say the government is indifferent to attacks on bloggers by Islamist militants.
The 3 following posts concern the assassinations of the secular Bangladeshi writers over the course of the past years or so. Because investigative details are sketchy along with the possible overlap in suspects, I not sure which story goes to which writer. The one commonality is the extremist group Ansar Al Bangla (Ansarullah Bangla Team).
Detectives
yesterday started extensive surveillance on three suspects for their
involvement in the murder of Niladri Chatterjee, who was killed on
Friday at his Goran flat allegedly in the hands of radical Islamists.
The trio were identified based on statements of the wife of the slain
secularist writer, neighbours and locals, and also by analysing the
post-mortem and the inquest reports.
To confirm their identities, the detectives have sent a blood-stained
towel and a red T-shirt collected from the ground floor of the building
to the forensic department of Dhaka Medical College for DNA test.
They also collected Niloy’s teeth from the flat and sent those for examination.
Investigators said that the eight major stab injuries, found on Niloy’s body, were made by a left-handed killer.
During primary investigation, the detectives have also found that the
email claiming responsibilities for the murder was sent to different
media outlets after the killing from a laptop based in Hathazari area of
Chittagong.
A group named Ansar Al Bangla sent the email, signed by its
spokesperson Mufti Abdullah Ashraf. High officials of the Detective
Branch of police have said that it was a fake name.
