It was a twofer. That’s effectively what the Bangladeshi militant Islamist group Ansar Bangla 7 wrote on Twitter after the murder of Avijit Roy, who was hacked to death in Dhaka last Thursday: “The target was an American citizen. 2 in 1.” Two for one because the author and blogger Avijit Roy was an avowed atheist and an American citizen.
“#Revenge + #Punishment,” the Tweet concluded. In the twisted minds of the militants, cleaving a writer’s head with a machete is fitting punishment for expressing views they do not like, and killing an American citizen is some kind of sick revenge for the United States’ actions in Afghanistan and Syria.
In 2013, the blogger Rajib Haider was hacked to death on a Dhaka street. Just as Mr. Roy did, Mr. Haider supported the death penalty for individuals convicted of committing war crimes during the Bangladesh war in 1971, including many members of the Islamist Jamaat-e-Islami party.
Bangladesh’s laws do not help. The secular government of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has arrested and tried bloggers for blasphemy under Section 57 of the country’s 2006 Information and Communication Technology Act, which bars disseminating any information that “causes to hurt or may hurt religious belief or instigate against any person or organization.” Political polarization between Mrs. Hasina’s Awami League government and the Bangladesh National Party’s leader, Khaleda Zia, is also contributing to the crisis. Alarmed, the United Nations has called for dialogue between the opposing parties, and diplomats from nine countries, including the United States, called Tuesday for an end to the violence.
This time, the government has reacted quickly. Bangladeshi authorities have arrested a suspect, Shafiur Rahman Farabi, in Mr. Roy’s death. Mr. Farabi apparently posted images of the crime scene shortly after the attack. Bangladesh has also accepted an offer by the United States to assist the investigation. This is appropriate given that Mr. Roy was apparently killed, in part, simply because he was an American citizen.
Last year, Mr. Farabi allegedly posted this ominous message on Facebook: “Avijit Roy lives in America. So, it’s not possible to kill him now. When he returns home, he will be killed then.” Bangladesh’s government needs to do far more to protect writers and to send a clear message that it will not allow free speech to be silenced by murder.
Source: The New York Times
