The death of another blogger in Bangladesh:
On Monday, the 27-year-old Rahman fell victim to the same brazen act that killed Roy, hacked to death by two men with knives and meat cleavers just outside his house as he headed to work at a travel agency.
A sobering thought, even for a rank new blog such as this one. Even more horrifying was this continuation:
Of the three involved in the Monday morning attack, two were quickly caught by bystanders.
In confessions to police, the pair — both students at Islamic schools — said they didn’t know what a blog was, nor had they seen Rahman’s writing.
They said they were acting on orders from another person who told them killing Rahman was a religious duty, Police Commissioner Biplob Kumar Sarkar told reporters.
I would say this is brain-washing, beyond dispute. And heart-breaking – the murderers are now ruined men; probably incapable of critical thought, as a result of their upbringing; if they are freed through miscarriage or violence, they only have a future in a violent cult that denies its own holy books claims of peace. And they’ll be at the mercy of the man who ordered them to commit this heartless act. And the man who ordered this hit will no doubt die from violence, if not from Bangladeshi police, then from a rival who deems him a … blasphemer. Which leads to the motivation of the crime: he was an outspoken skeptic.
He used to write under the pseudonym “Stupid Man” on a blog but switched to posting on Facebook after 2011.
On Facebook, he is credited for a series, “Jaw-crushing answers to insulting comments of atheists.”
There, he posted questions that critics of Islam often raised and then answered them. But he paired the answers in such a way that they highlighted the contradiction within Islam.
As an agnostic and skeptic myself, it is discouraging to hear of another being killed because his beliefs do not mesh with some fundamentalist fanatic’s view of how society should be ordered. No doubt the fanatic will die at another fanatic’s hands, and the violence will continue to swirl. It makes my heart heavy.
The previous death was reported by CNN here. The Center For Inquiry, a notable organization devoted to secularism, has a statement condemning the murder.
We are Washiqur.
