David Bergman - Ten key questions (and answers) about the attacks on atheist bloggers in Bangladesh
The murder of
28-year-old law graduate on Wednesday was the sixth such killing since February
2015.
What can one conclude
from Wednesday’s murder of 28-year-old law graduate Nazimuddin Samad who was
hacked to death by assailants in Bangladesh’s capital city of Dhaka, bringing
to six the total number of men killed in a similar manner
since February 2013?
Here are 10 key points
about the attacks on young atheists in Bangladesh.
1. Who’s at
risk?: If you are
currently living or staying in Bangladesh and write, or have in the past
written, critically about religion on any website, blog, Facebook or Twitter
account, you are at risk from being attacked and killed by Islamic militants. That may sound
dramatic, but that is the unfortunate reality. Social class will obviously play
a role – and elite atheist bloggers (so-called, even though some of them seem
to have been targeted for expressing themselves on any form of social-media)
are less vulnerable than middle or lower middle class people like Samad, who do
not have their own cars and who have to walk to work, or take public transport.
The only positive
point that can be said is that the attacks are not frequent. It seems that the
number of militants involved is small, and they do not have the logistical
ability, at present, to organise more than the occasional attack.
2. Who’s
responsible?: The
organisation Ansar al-Islam Bangladesh, which used to be known as the
Ansarullah Bangla Team, issued a statement claiming responsibility for the
killing. The local militant group is a known affiliate of Al Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent and
has previously claimed responsibility for a number of the previous killings of
“atheist bloggers”.
It is not likely that
this Al Qaeda outfit has any actual presence in Bangladesh – Ansar al-Islam has
perhaps simply decided to affiliate itself with this international militant
organisation for prestige purposes. It is not known the extent to which the Al
Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent actually provides them assistance – or indeed
whether these string of murders would have taken place even if there were not
this international linkage.
These "blogger
murders" appear to be distinct from other killings, involving the murder
of foreigners and attacks on Shia gatherings, that have taken place since the
middle of 2015, and for which Islamic State have claimed responsibility.
3. Who else
faces threat?: According
to reports, the Ansar al-Islam statement stated that “We don’t
attack people for being atheist in their personal lives …. We only target those
who deride Islam and the Prophet.” It then went onto say that they killed Nizam
Uddin for committing “blasphemy against our beloved Prophet,” and referred to
three particular posts that he had written on his Facebook page.
However, the statement
also reportedly went onto threaten to target judges,
lawyers, engineers and doctors “who don’t allow others to follow the rulings of
the Islamic Shariah.” It is not clear what
this means in reality – since this constitutes an enormous class of people.
However, perhaps a greater concern is that other secular activists, who may not
necessarily be atheists (or at least do not write publicly about their views )
could be at risk in the future.
This could include for
example those who protest against Islamic fundamentalism and campaign in
support of imposing the death penalty on those convicted of war crimes at the
International Crimes Tribunal (see below). At present, while many "atheist
bloggers" are also involved in or support these activities, it is their
so-called atheistic writings that makes them the target. It is certainly possible,
however that this could change.
4. Why are
these attacks happening now?:
There are a number of factors, but without the exponential increase in the use
of social networks, these attacks would not be taking place. With social
networks, anyone can write and publish whatever they want. And anyone in the
world with an internet connection can then read it.
Ten years ago, perhaps
the same number of people in Bangladesh had views critical of religion – but
nobody then knew who they were or read anything they may have written. This has
now changed – and intolerant Islamic militants can now read what they say, find
out whether they live and target them.
5. Do these
murders reflect wider conflicts within society?: Yes, these murders
are also a reflection on the longstanding conflict within Bangladesh about the
role of religion in the country.
The country fought to
be independent from the Islamic state of Pakistan and Bangladesh’s original
constitution emphasised secularism, and banned religious political parties.
However, after the assassination of the country’s independence leader, Sheikh
Mujibur Rahman, things changed. The ban on religious parties was lifted,
secularism as a fundamental principle was removed from the constitution, and in
time, Islam was made the state religion.
The current government
however has reintroduced secularism. Islam, nonetheless, remains the state religion,
in apparent acknowledgement of the deep divide within the country about the
role religion should play. These murders are a stark reminder that this divide
remains very potent.
6. What role does
the International Crimes Tribunals play here?: These attacks also have to be seen in the context of the International
Crimes Tribunal which were established in 2010 to prosecute those
accused of war crimes during the country’s independence war and which pits the
State against the leaders of the islamist party, the Jamaat-e-Islami. These
attacks also have to be seen in the context of the International Crimes
Tribunal which was established in 2010 to hold to account those accused of war
crimes during the country’s independence war. What that meant in effect was the
State being pitted against the leaders of the islamist party, the
Jamaat-e-Islami.
The trials, in which
supposedly pious religious politicians faced the prospect of the death penalty,
always created the risk of some kind of blow-back – a risk that was perhaps
exacerbated by criticisms regarding the fairness of the trials. And whilst
there is no evidence to suggest that Jammat themselves have been involved in
these blogger killings, it is very possible that the perverted minds of the men
involved in these murders consider their involvement in “avenging blasphemy” as
similar in some way to the death penalties imposed by the state following these
trials.
7. Is there a
connection with the Shahbagh Movement as well?: The secular progressive anti-fundamentalist
mass protests, which were triggered by a decision by the Tribunal in early
February 2013 to impose a sentence of imprisonment rather than that of death on
a convicted Jamaat leader, known as the Shahagh Movement, is also significant.
In order to delegitimise this movement, its
opponents began claiming that the huge daily protests taking place in Shahbagh
crossing were connected with "atheist bloggers" whose comments about
Islam were published in some newspapers.
On February 15, 2013, Ahmed Rajib Haider, an atheist who wrote critically about
religion, and was also involved in organising the Shahbagh protests, was hacked
to death, the very first such murder.
8. Is lack of
democracy also responsible? In the Wall Street Journal, Shafquat Munir, a respected
security analyst at the Bangladesh Institute of Peace and Security Studies is
quoted as saying that “The shrinking democratic space and the absence of a
credible opposition creates a political void which then allows radicals,
extremists and fringe elements to take centre stage.” This general position
also seems to be reflected in a new report published by the International Crisis
Group
Whilst Bangladesh’s lack
of democratic space – due to the absence of legitimate elections in 2014, the
brutal crackdown on opposition leaders and activists including the filing of
hundreds if not thousands of apparently false criminal cases, and the countless
disappearances and extra judicial killings, along with the crackdown on the
independent media – is certainly a very serious problem in Bangladesh, it seems
too simplistic to suggest that this provides an explanation for
recent killings.
Of course, if proper
democratic politics does not return to Bangladesh, more people may will turn
towards the extremes. But, even if Bangladesh's opposition was allowed to
function, it is likely that for the reasons set out above, these killings would
still have taken place.
9. Can the police
protect these bloggers?: Apart
from the authorities not having the capacity and resources to protect such a
large number of potential victims, the police cannot be trusted to be on the
side of the so-called bloggers. This is because Bangladesh has a panoply of
laws that criminalise those who write critically about religion.
Under the 1860 Penal
Code, it is an offence to deliberately “outrage the religious feelings” of any
class of citizen as well also deliberately intend to “wound the religious
feelings of any person”. It is also an offence under the Information,
Communications and Technology Act 2006, to write something on the internet that
“causes to hurt or may hurt religious belief” which has attached to it a
minimum sentence of seven years imprisonment.
It should therefore be
no surprise that “atheist bloggers” are wary of seeking the protection of the
police, as they could be arrested for any of these offences. Many social
network activists claim that they fear being arrested if they seek protection from
the police. “I have not gone to the police because police actually tried to
arrest me in 2013,” CNN reported one atheist blogger in Bangladesh as
saying.
10. What is the
government’s stand in all this? Whilst
most Bangladeshis would expect that the government to unconditionally condemn
these killings, the government seems unclear quite how to react. Whilst there
are voices within the government that do condemn the killing, others also seem
to have half an eye on its lack of diligence in enforcing the laws
criminalising “hurting religious feeling”, and the other half on not wanting to
be seen by religious constituencies in the country supporting people with views
critical of religion.
This confusion,
results in a failure of the government to take a clear principled position
against the killings. Instead, for example, one has the home minister focusing
on what exactly it was that Nizam Uddin wrote. “It is needed to see whether he
has written anything objectionable in his blogs,” he told the BBC Bengali service.
see also
