Atheist Author Macheted To Death Outside Book Festival

[PeaceNikki]

Has this been discussed on DU? I haven't been around much the past couple weeks...

http://thinkprogress.org/world/2015/02/27/3628175/blogger-macheted-bangladesh/

A prominent writer with a known disdain for religion was hacked to death on the streets of Dhaka, Bangladesh on Thursday. Avijit Roy was leaving a large, national book fair with his wife when the two were attacked by assailants wielding machetes. His wife, a blogger, suffered a blow to the head and is in critical condition.
Roy, who lived in the United States for fear of just this sort of attack, was aware of the risks he faced by returning to Bangladesh to sell his most recent book, Biswasher Virus or “The Virus of Faith” at a the book fair.

“As soon as the book was released, it rose to the top of the fair’s best-seller list,” he wrote in an forthcoming article to be published by the secular periodical Free Inquiry. “At the same time, it hit the cranial nerve of Islamic fundamentalists. The death threats started flowing to my e-mail inbox on a regular basis. I suddenly found myself a target of militant Islamists and terrorists.”

Roy concluded the piece, “If one thing is certain, it is that the virus of faith is dangerously real.”

He was no doubt aware of the “dangerously real” nature of the threats Islamist organizations and individuals made against him. Roy ran a blog called Mukto-Mona, or “free mind” where he and others wrote extensively on secularism and what they believed the perils of religious extremism. He was well aware of the risks such work posed in Bangladesh — a country where several prominent secular, atheist writers have been attacked in recent years.

Rajib Haider, another Bangladhesi atheist blogger, was hacked to death by attackers in 2013. That same year, at least 27 people were killed in clashes between police and Islamist hardliners who called for anti-blasphemy laws to be enacted in Bangladesh. In 2004, Humayun Azad, a secular writer and professor was attacked by militants while leaving the same book fair Roy and his wife had attended. Azad died from his wounds.

[JDDavis]

1. Yes, Warren posted an article about this elsewhere, not in this group

But I'm sure you can find it in a logical place if you want to look.

It got some interesting responses there from fellow A+A folks.

[JDDavis]

2. Bangladesh authorities arrest man over atheist blogger's murder

Bangladeshi authorities have arrested a radical Islamist over the murder last week of an atheist US blogger, accusing him of being behind earlier death threats on social media.

A spokesman for the police’s elite Rapid Action Battalion (Rab) said Farabi Shafiur Rahman had been arrested at a bus station in the capital, Dhaka, over the gruesome killing of Avijit Roy. “He is the main suspect,” Rab spokesman Major Maksudul Alam said.

“He is a fundamentalist blogger,” the spokesman said, adding that according to “primary information” Farabi had threatened Roy through Twitter and Facebook. “[Roy’s] family told us that he got threats from Farabi several times,” he added.


Avijit Roy, the blogger who wouldn't back down in the face of threats
Read more
The American, who earned fame for his blog pieces and for authoring a series of books including the best-selling The Virus of the Faith, was hacked to death with a machete in Dhaka last Thursday.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/mar/02/bangladesh-authorities-arrest-man-atheist-bloggers-murder-avijit-roy

[PeaceNikki]

5. I am not holding my breath that justice will be served

[onager]

3. Thanks, I haven't been around much either.

Followed this horrible story in other places.

I've spent the past few days doing a trans-continental move. Only moved myself so far, furniture etc. is still in Los Angeles.

And yes, the jinx of George Bush Intl. Airport got me - delay in leaving Houston on Sat. nite due to broke airplane or something.

Anyway, I'm now relocated to the Buckle On The Bible Belt (where I grew up). And looking for a place to live etc. From the most liberal state in the nation to one of the most conservative and religious. This will be interesting...

[PeaceNikki]

4. Yeeesh, good luck with the move!

The past several years here in WI have really opened my eyes to what it must be like to be a Democrat in the South. I am in one of the reddest counties in the state. Waukesha County was infamously put on the DU map after the State Supreme Court race a few years ago thanks to our incompetent boob of a former clerk.

This story of the blogger has been bugging me and this quote really stuck: “If one thing is certain, it is that the virus of faith is dangerously real.”

For anyone who hasn't read his piece: http://www.centerforinquiry.net/uploads/attachments/Avijit-Roy-Final-Free-Inquiry.pdf

More powerful quotes:
"... religions display behavioral control over people in much the same way that parasites invade organisms."

"ISIS is what unfolds when the virus of faith launches into action and the outbreak becomes an epidemic."

[RussBLib]

6. Hadn't read that piece

Thanks for posting. It's great, and a little spooky knowing he's now dead.

He is a true martyr.

[Lordquinton]

10. I did that exact same move

only I ended up in Des Moines, which is rather blue these days, but coming from California it's a huge culture shift. Fortunately I'm back in the bay where I belong. (not in the bay... around the bay... never mind)

[RussBLib]

11. the good news is...

...you can find like-minded people wherever you go, thanks to the internetz.

Just not as many as in the Golden State.

[deucemagnet]

7. It's odd how I haven't seen the term "hate crime" applied to these murders,

yet it was used in reference to the Chapel Hill murders before the murderer's motive was ever ascertained.

[LostOne4Ever]

8. Only the anti-religious can be bigots dontcha know?

[PeaceNikki]

9. mmm hmm