Another secular blogger and Atheist Niloy Neel was hacked to death with machetes at his home in Bangladesh yesterday. Niloy is the fourth secularist blogger to have been killed in Bangladesh this year and so far the authorities have charged no one for these killings (that they are publicising).
There exists a list of 84 secular and atheist bloggers (not all are atheists) that was originally draw up by Islamic groups in Bangladesh in 2013 and circulated with a view to getting these people arrested for blasphemy; all of the murdered people so far were on that list. Bangladesh is supposed to be a secular country, that's clearly a joke, it is obviously a deeply superstitious and insecure country that has in it groups of people (almost certainly Islamic) intent on extinguishing dissenting voices, voices that simply ask for a level playing field (legally) among all religions and none. Niloy himself was not from an Islamic background, he was born into a Hindu family and also campaigned for equality between the genders and the rights of indigenous peoples. Previously he had asked for police protection and at the time of his slaughter his wife was also present in their apartment, we can only imagine the horror for both of them.
It's difficult to know what to do in response to such unnecessary barbarism, I suppose all we can realistically do is lobby and give support to help to keep these atrocities in the public eye as best we can; ultimately the religious barbarism landscape is a very busy space.
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