Bangladesh's Atheist Blogger Still Wants to Talk
What do you say to someone who tried to stab you to death?
The unlikely opportunity to find out presented itself to Asif Mohiuddin not long ago in a jail in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Taken into custody for a second time for allegedly posting “offensive comments about Islam and Mohammed” on his blog, the outspoken atheist blogger and anti-Islamist political activist found himself in a cell next to one of the three assailants who had been waiting outside his office building when he arrived for the night shift on the 14th of January 2013. Without a word, they had come from behind with knives and machetes, attempted to slit his throat and rained down lacerating blows on his back and neck, one of which missed his spinal column by half an inch.
“The 19-year-old boy’s name was Kamal,” Asif explained to me in English over a Skype chat. “I talked to him very politely, trying to understand what they want from me. We had a little chat about religion and humanity.”
What Asif learned is that his would-be murderer, ten years his junior, did not want anything from him in particular, declining even a neighborly offer of food between the bars. Kamal and the other young incarcerated members of Bangladesh Islami Chhatra Shibir—or Shibir, the youth wing of Jamaat-e-Islami, the leading Islamist political party in the country—seemed genuinely to enjoy their captive colloquies, seemed to like Asif “as a human being.”
It was nothing personal. But as an atheist, he would have to be killed.
The worst crime ever
Asif’s story first came to me over the BBC World Service when the attack made international news. During his subsequent persecution by the authorities, he had been in communication with some of my colleagues and friends with the Bengali freethought website Mukto-Mona and the D.C.-based Center for Inquiry, with whose help we eventually connected.
Although he said that there were some things he could not discuss, Asif embraced the opportunity to explain his predicament and raise the alarm about what he sees as a degradation of Bangladeshi civil society. Having committed to paper a few words on the subject of human rights and religious dissent, I knew I could learn much from someone who had committed everything to it.
By the time we connected, it was close to midnight in Azimpur, an old quarter of the city where he had sought out a secret location for internet access. Earlier that day, August 25, he had returned home from a court hearing at which his trial was again delayed. Originally arrested on April 3, he was granted one month’s bail on health grounds in late June but then taken into pre-trial custody again from July 29 to August 7. Charged with “hurting religious sentiments” under the Information and Communication Technology Act of 2006 (recently amended so as to limit due process rights), Asif faces a possible 10-year jail sentence and fine of roughly $130,000.
“It is not very safe to go outside of home nowadays as my name is on the hit list of some fundamentalist groups,” Asif told me. “Our prime minister said that they will arrange some police protection for the bloggers and activists of the Shahbag movement; my name was on that list also. But no one contacted me about it.”
The Shahbag movement (named for a political center in the Bangladeshi capital) brought to new intensity longstanding calls for the prosecution of the perpetrators of atrocities committed during the 1971 war for independence of what was then East Pakistan, many of whom went on to become leaders in religious parties such as Jamaat, bent on sabotaging the country’s strides towards secular democracy.
In February 2013, after the long-sought International Crimes Tribunal convicted Abdul Quader Mollah and others of war crimes, mass protests denounced the sentences as overly lenient and demanded death sentences and the banning of Jamaat-e-Islami from politics. Jamaat-aligned counterprotests resulted in violent clashes. On February 15, one of Asif’s fellow bloggers, Ahmed Rajib Haider, fell to the militants’ machetes.
Asif, who told me that he opposes capital punishment on human rights grounds, faulted the government for co-opting the movement to curry favor with secularists even while attempting to mollify the powerful forces of conservative religion. A highly visible atheist, he suggested, made for the perfect sacrifice: “They told me, be a murderer, be a rapist, be a war criminal, but never be an atheist. That is the worst crime ever from their point of view.”
The theology of witness
But what was their evidence? I asked.
“They don’t have any evidence against me. They just searched some blog posts that were written by some Jamaat-Shibir activists and put it in the charge sheet. The links were fake and few of them were photoshopped. They just edited my sentences and made a screen shot. I told them my blog account has been blocked by [Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission], but they were asking me again and again, thinking I hid it somewhere.”
What opinions did they attribute to Asif?
“The prosecution claimed I wrote that each and every mosque should be destroyed and a public toilet and library built in its place. But actually I wrote that we don’t need so many mosques in Dhaka city; maybe we need some more libraries and public toilets for women, especially those who work in the streets.”
They also claimed, he said, that his blog promoted homosexuality and promiscuity when in fact it defended equal rights. .. Read more:
