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| Bangladesh |
| Bangla bloggers fear deadly backlash won’t end soon |
| 2015-11-14 |
| DHAKA: Omi Rahman Pial has changed homes five times in the last three months. He hasn’t seen his young daughter in weeks and is afraid to be seen on the streets of Dhaka, Bangladesh’s capital and home to several grisly killings of secular bloggers like him. “I am a refugee in my own country,” he said. “And under the threat of being killed, nowhere to go. Where should I go? So if you want to see the maximum punishment a blogger could get in Bangladesh, look at me.” Fear is running high following months in which four bloggers and three other people have been killed, allegedly by radicals. Many bloggers have gone into hiding, and some have left the country. Authorities blame the opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party and Jamaat-e-Islami, saying they want to destabilize the country ahead of executions, expected late this year, of two influential politicians from the two parties for war crimes. Some of the victims were involved in a movement that has pressed for capital punishment for those politicians and several others for actions during the country’s 1971 independence war against Pakistan. Two of the politicians have been executed. The parties deny involvement in the killings, saying Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s government is pushing hard-liners to strike back by cracking down on its opponents. Daesh has claimed responsibility, but authorities deny that the Sunni extremist group has any presence in the South Asian country. The blogger attacks have made many fear the rise of radicalism in this Muslim-majority nation known since independence for its secularism. The first strike this year came in February when American-Bangladeshi blogger and writer Avijit Roy was hacked to death as he and his wife walked on the campus of Dhaka University. Then three other secular bloggers have been killed in daylight attacks in Dhaka and outside. Early this fall, two foreigners — an Italian aid worker and a Japanese agriculture researcher — were killed within a week of each other. The Daesh group claimed responsibility, as it did Oct. 31, when assailants attacked two book publishers in their Dhaka offices; one died man died and three others were critically injured. “I am scared. They may kill me anytime,” Pial said in an apartment he shares with another blogger who has also gone into hiding, fearing for his life. “I have not seen my 6-year-old daughter for weeks, my wife is safe for now as she is outside the country with a scholarship. I don’t go outside for days,” Pial said. “It’s a difficult time for us, for the nation. I don’t know where we are heading to.” Pial often appears in television talk shows and stands against radical religious ideologies, war criminals and the Jamaat, which he says should be banned for extremism and its stand against the country’s independence. He views the killings by suspected radicals as part of a “pseudo-war” against the ongoing war-crimes proceedings, which he has advocated for years. Authorities say recent violence including the killings of bloggers and foreigners is aimed at derailing the executions of influential BNP leader Salahuddin Quader Chowdhury and Jamaat leader Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mujahid. The Supreme Court has upheld a special tribunal’s verdict for their execution; the defendants’ petitions for a final review of the judgment will be heard Nov. 17. Clemency is unlikely from the country’s figurehead president, as Hasina has said war criminals should get the maximum punishment. Mahbubul Hoque Shakil, a close aide to Hasina, told The Associated Press that the “powerful, strong and moneyed” defendants are trying to derail the process. “And certain foreign governments are with them because they have their interests here. They are trying to use their every bit of their strength,” he said. |
| Posted by:badanov |