Another blogger has fallen victim to Islamic extremists. Avijit Roy, a Bangladesh-born U.S. citizen, was hacked to death during a walk with his wife in Dhaka as both were returning from a book fair at Dhaka University. How did he insult Islam? No, it wasn’t a cartoon or a satirical poem. He wrote about religious intolerance so they hacked him to death.
Roy was the founder of the Mukto-Mona (“free mind”) blog which maintained a community of free-thinkers, secularists, atheists and humanists in Bangladesh.
His wife, Rafida Ahmed, is also a blogger and she was seriously injured in the attack. The group, Ansar Bangla 7, claimed responsibility for the attack and said that Roy “was the target because of his crime against Islam.” They waited for Roy near a roadside tea stall and then hacked the couple with meat cleavers.
Islamic parties are on the rise in Bangladesh and have made the adoption of criminal blasphemy laws a priority.
Roy angered many Muslims by defending atheism as “a rational concept to oppose any unscientific and irrational belief.”
Roy’s death followed the killing in 2013 of another blogger, Ahmed Rajib Haider, who also spoke out against religious extremism.
Roy wrote about the right of every person to follow the religious or secular path that they believed in. For that, these fanatics butchered him in the street.
@davidm2575. Perhaps you can name a government that in the long run was not hazardous to its citizenry. Certainly it’s a pretty short list compared to the alternative.
“Witnesses have even said officers and bystanders were there during the murder – but did nothing.”
Sounds like LA or NYC to me. Sorry. only they weren’t police officers and they were Hacking people up……..Oh sorry wrong analogy.
But no drugs, they don’t do drugs!
Of course if a bunch of Muslims “hack someone” they’re going to “hack them to death.” What would you expect to happen? That they would be “hacked to life?” So, in case there is any misunderstanding, let me make this absolutely clear. Hacking someone up is going to lead to death. Humanity has had centuries of experience in hacking other people, so there is a large body of statistical support for the argument that hacking up people leads to their deaths. There’s a really strong cause and effect thing going on here, say, in contrast to smoking and getting cancer. This is particularly the case when the person doing the hacking is a member of the cult of Islam, and is thereby a practitioner of the 5 Ds of Islam: death, destruction, devastation, depravity, and deception.
I guess he was proven correct.
Oh, the irony.
Love how the usual suspects go off on tangents about fundamentalism and evangelicalism, never addressing the story and the facts at hand. Funny how we aren’t inundated with daily stories about Christians. . .oh, yes, even the fundamentalists and evangelicals. . .the extremists. . .hacking people to death in the streets, kidnapping and raping hundreds of innocents, burning places of worship, setting people on fire. . .the list is endless. No, we’re getting lectures on how all fundamentalists of all religions are equal in their depravity. Ho hum. How typical.
Some people don’t know the difference between evangelicalism and fundamentalism. Lutherans are evangelical, most mainstream religions are evangelical.
Take them at the word. They fight for the Prophet. They fight for Islam. You don’t get to claim they are something else to make excuses. They have told you over and over again. Why don’t you believe them?
Thugs, wax em all. Don’t authorize their activities by referring to them as part of any religion. If Islam is a religion of peace then the peaceful retain the right to label who and who isn’t of Islam. Peace is greater than any religion. The rest is BS.
issac – so only the Roman Catholics get to define who are Christians? If they claim they are Muslims and fight under the Muslim banner, who are we to take it away from them. The Prophet fought under that banner. Many a conqueror fought under that banner.
issac wrote: “Don’t authorize their activities by referring to them as part of any religion.”
How does making them a part of a religion authorize their activities? Is it because Islam is the State Religion of Bangladesh?
Later this morning, we will get the perfunctory, “Evangelical Christians are just as bad.” It is as predictable as the tides.
Sad, tragic and a warning to those of us who think tolerance and excuses for fanatics of any religion is a good idea. Anti blasphemy laws and other concessions only fuel the fire. Theocrats are hazardous to humans.
Justice Holmes wrote: “Theocrats are hazardous to humans.”
That is as bad a generalization as saying governments are hazardous to humans.
Pen v. Sword.
Before we run off blaming Islam for this, or Islam for that, radicals this, radicals that, let’s take a step back and consider this as a simple case of ‘Workplace Violence’.
We’re all reasonable here.
Some people don’t realize that other countries are not as free and safe as America in regards to speech.
“Witnesses have even said officers and bystanders were there during the murder – but did nothing.”
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2971508/American-blogger-spoke-against-religious-extremism-hacked-death-Muslim-militant-group-Bangladeshi-street-walked-wife.html
The Religion of Peace strikes again.