Bangladesh Call for effective protection after another blogger hacked to death

[LaborTech] Bangladesh Call for effective protection after another blogger hacked to death


Bangladesh
Call for effective protection after another blogger hacked to death

http://en.rsf.org/bangladesh-call-fo...015,47635.html


After men with machetes killed writer and blogger Avijit Roy, founder of mukto-mona.com ((« free thinking ») and seriously injured his wife, Rafida Ahmed Banna, on a Dhaka street yesterday, Reporters Without Borders urges the authorities to take unprecedented measures to protect bloggers and combat impunity for those who attack them

Roy, who had US and Bangladeshi dual citizenship and normally resided in the United States, had just left a book fair near the University of Dhaka with his wife when they were attacked.

After dealing Roy a mortal blow to the head and severing one his wife’s fingers, the attackers dropped their machetes and fled. Roy was rushed to Dhaka Medical College and Hospital where he was pronounced dead on the operating table.

The Islamist militant group Ansar al Islam claimed responsibility for Roy’s murder in a series of messages on its Twitter account, Ansar Bangla 7. One of the tweets said: “The target was an American citizen.. 2 in 1. #America recently martyred 2 of our brothers in #Khurasan & #Shaam. #Revenge+#Punishment.”

“We are shocked by this act of barbarity and offer our condolences to his wife and his family,” said Benjamin Ismaïl, the head of the Reporters Without Borders Asia-Pacific desk.

“The measures so far taken have not led to the arrest and trial of the perpetrators and instigators of crimes of violence against journalists and bloggers. The police and judicial authorities need to focus on the right target. It is unacceptable for them to spend so much time searching news outlets, arresting journalists, censoring news and investigating bloggers, when the many attacks on bloggers are still unpunished.”

Nineteen bloggers were openly threatened on Islamist websites and in street demonstrations in February 2013, while several former leaders of Jaamat-E-Islami and other Islamist parties were on trial. The militants accused the bloggers of blasphemy and demanded their execution.

The authorities responded to the threats by arresting bloggers and closing sites. The blogger Asif Mohiuddin was interrogated by the Dhaka police detective branch on 23 March 2013, two days after the Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission blocked access to his blog (http://www.somewhereinblog.net/blog...). Bloggers on Islamist hit-list

The author of such books as “Biswaser Virus” (Virus of Faith) and “Sunyo theke Mahabiswa” (From Vacuum to the Great World), Roy had often been the target of vitriolic criticism from Islamist groups, which had repeatedly threatened to kill him in connection with this writing.

Roy’s murder recalls that of Rajib Haider, a blogger who was hacked to death near his home in the Dhaka neighbourhood of Palashnagar on 15 February 2013.

In a Facebook entry on 15 November, Ansar al Islam claimed responsibility for three murders, including Haider’s and posted a list of future victims, which included Mohiuddin.

According to the information obtained by Reporters Without Borders, the blogger Subrata Audhikary Shuvo could the next target of the radical Islamists, who sentenced him to death after he was arrested under the blasphemy law in May 2013 and have been threatening him ever since.

Bangladesh is ranked 146th out of 180 countries in the 2015 Reporters Without Borders press freedom index.



--
Ahmed Swapan Mahmud

Executive Director, VOICE
House 67, Block-Ka
Pisciculture Housing Society
Shyamoli, Dhaka 1207, Bangladesh

Tel : +88-02-8158688, Cell-phone : +88-01711-881919,
Website : www.voicebd.org

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I'd ask if anybody here is an expert on Ansar al-Islam, but then again, the only members of revleft that I expect to be experts would be intelligence officials xD These days, it seems that whenever our State Department says something, I tend to believe the opposite xD

http://www.revleft.com/vb/psych-wars...648/index.html

The most damning evidence of the US relationship to 'al-Zarqawi' is the US connection to Ansar-al-Islam based in the north of Iraq in a Kurdish area, a 'protectorate' of the US since 1991.

The first question one must ask is why the US allowed this alleged 'branch' of al-Qu'eda to maintain its headquarters in the US-Kurdish controlled area where it carried out assassinations and attacks on the Kurdish PUK (apparently with the assistance of the Iraqi government).

In all likelihood following the classic 'divide and rule' tactics of the coloniser, Ansar-al-Islam is a US-inspired organisation, what else explains the fact that its main base existed in full view of the US from its inception in 2001 until its 'timely' destruction in 2003 after having been named as al-Zarqawi's organisation.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ansar_al-Islam

After Powell had left office, he in 2008 acknowledged that he was skeptical of the evidence presented to him for the speech of February 2003. In an interview, he told Barbara Walters then that he considered that speech a "blot" on his record and that he felt "terrible" about assertions that he made in the speech that turned out to be false. He said, "There were some people in the intelligence community who knew at that time that some of these sources were not good, and shouldn't be relied upon, and they didn't speak up. That devastated me." When asked specifically about a Saddam/al-Qaeda connection, Powell responded, "I have never seen a connection. … I can't think otherwise because I'd never seen evidence to suggest there was one."

http://www.democraticunderground.com...ss=104x1586648

"I have in my possession irrefutable evidence against the Americans and I am prepared to supply it ... if (the United States) tries to implicate me in an affair linked to terrorism," Mullah Krekar, who is believed to front Ansar al-Islam, told Al-Hayat newspaper.

He dismissed as "fabrications" reports linking his group to Al-Qaeda, saying they were designed to justify a strike against Iraq.

Krekar lives in Norway. The United States has not sought his extradition.