After death threats, Bangladeshi atheist relocates to US

[rug]

By Kimberly Winston?|?Religion News Service June 2 at 3:31 PM

An internationally renowned atheist activist has relocated from India to the U.S. after receiving death threats from an extremist group that has claimed responsibility for at least one of three machete killings of South Asian atheists this year.

Taslima Nasrin, a Bangladeshi gynecologist, novelist and poet, arrived in New York state last Wednesday (May 27). The move was orchestrated by the Center for Inquiry, an organization that promotes secularism and has been working with atheist activists in countries where atheism is unprotected by blasphemy laws.

“Extremist groups have been pretty public that they want Taslima killed,” said Michael de Dora, CFI’s director of public policy and president of the United Nations NGO Committee on Freedom of Religion or Belief. “In the last couple of weeks this has been ramping up and that’s why we were so concerned.”

Nasrin, 52, is well-known among atheists in this country and abroad. She rose to prominence in Bangladesh with the 1993 publication of her first novel, “Shame,” which detailed her country’s Muslim-Hindu tensions and argued against religion. It was banned in Bangladesh and Nasrin became the subject of a fatwa — an Islamic religious ruling — that called for her death for blasphemy. By 1994, she had to secretly leave Bangladesh for neighboring India.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/religion/after-death-threats-bangladeshi-atheist-relocates-to-us/2015/06/02/f39234a2-095d-11e5-951e-8e15090d64ae_story.html

https://secure.centerforinquiry.net/freethought-rescue

[hrmjustin]

1. I saw this. Horrific thats she has to flee to avoid harm.

I wish her the best.

[longship]

2. PZ posted about her yesterday.

Free Taslima

We’ve been waiting for this. After the murders of multiple secular bloggers in Bangladesh, there has been a mad behind-the-scenes (because no one wanted to alert the murderers) scramble to get our very own Taslima Nasrin, who was on the execution list for these Islamist fanatics, to a place of safety. She’s out! She’s currently in the US!

Now comes the hard part, though. She needs a long-term commitment to her safety, and CFI is setting up an emergency fund to support her and other threatened secularists. That last bit is important; Taslima is not the only one trying to survive under a death sentence.

If you want to help out, donate to the Freethought Emergency Fund.

Learn more about her from her Wiki: Taslima Nasrin

Or Google her. She is awesome, and she has a fucking death sentence on her because she is educated and speaks out for people's rights, especially women, which in some places in the world means people get to kill you.

[Cartoonist]

3. meanwhile

Some idiot blogger is complaining about "not enough lions"

Look at where the real terrorism is coming from. Hint, It isn't from atheists.