Whilst Ghanaians and Africans in general can be pretty extreme in the levels they take their bigotry, especially towards gay people; at least people like myself can go around inconveniencing people’s beliefs without fearing a machete waiting for us at every street corner.
Unfortunately, that is the situation Bangladeshi bloggers have to exist with. Despite being officially a ‘secular’ nation, Islamic militants are left to roam free hacking bloggers to death. Another reason why those who go around trumpeting that Islam is a religion of peace are engaging in the highest levels of intellectual dishonesty; when most of the cases of such extremism is coming from people a particular faith, you can only go so far without blaming the faith.
Another atheist Bangladeshi blogger has been hacked to death by Islamic militants in Dhaka. Niloy Neel was attacked at his home by machete wielding thugs, for the sole crime of non-belief and advocating for minority rights.
Police in the Bangladeshi capital confirmed the incident.
Imran H Sarkar, head of the Bangladesh Blogger and Activist Network, told the BBC that Mr Neel had been an anti-extremist voice of reason.
“He was the voice against fundamentalism and extremism and was even a voice for minority rights – especially women’s rights and the rights of indigenous people,” he said.
The attackers, six in number, had tricked their way into Mr Neel’s apartment by claiming they were looking to rent. Two of them then lured him into a room, where they hacked him to death. His wife only survived because she was in another room at the time.
BBC confirms that after the earlier three atheist blogger deaths, Neel had filed a police report expressing fear for his life, but nothing was done about it.
In May, secular blogger Ananta Bijoy Das was killed by masked men with machetes in Sylhet. He was said to have received death threats from Islamist extremists.
In March, another blogger, Washiqur Rahman, was hacked to death in Dhaka. Blogger Avijit Roy, who courted controversy by championing atheism and also tackling issues such as gay rights, was killed in Dhaka in February. All four were on a list of 84 “atheist bloggers” drawn up by Islamic groups in 2013 and widely circulated.
For the four deaths, all police have done is arrest two people, yet charge no one with anything. To say the government implicitly condones these barbaric actions is an understatement.
Islam is only a religion of peace inasmuch as they leave a piece of you here and a piece of you there, when they’re done with you.