Another Bangladeshi blogger assassinated.

[Valigarmander]

The fourth one this year, victim to a religion of butchers.

A Bangladeshi blogger known for his atheist views has been hacked to death by a gang armed with machetes in the capital Dhaka, police say.

Niloy Neel was attacked at his home in the city's Goran area.

He is the fourth secularist blogger to have been killed this year by suspected Islamist militants in Bangladesh.

Imran H Sarkar, head of the Bangladesh Blogger and Activist Network, told the BBC that Mr Neel had been an anti-extremist voice of reason.

"He was the voice against fundamentalism and extremism and was even a voice for minority rights - especially women's rights and the rights of indigenous people," he said.

BBC World Service South Asia editor Charles Haviland says that, like previous victims, Mr Neel was not only secular but atheist and, like two of the others, he was from a Hindu, not a Muslim, background.

All four men killed were on a list of 84 "atheist bloggers" drawn up by Islamic groups in 2013 and widely circulated.

It was originally submitted to the government with the aim of having the bloggers arrested and tried for blasphemy. The groups which wanted bloggers arrested told us they have no knowledge of who is behind the killings.

There is also a more complex backdrop to the killings. Islamic groups label all these bloggers "atheists" - and many did indeed use the internet to criticise those who believe in God.

But in fact, not all the bloggers were atheists. What they did have in common was they were part of a wider, secular movement that took to the streets in protest in 2013.

The BBC's Akbar Hossain in Dhaka says Mr Neel had filed a police report expressing fear for his life, but his complaints had not been not followed up.

Police said about six attackers had tricked their way into Mr Neel's home by saying they were looking to rent a flat.

"Two of them then took him to a room and then slaughtered him there," deputy police commissioner Muntashirul Islam said.

"His wife was in the flat but she was confined to another room."

In May, secular blogger Ananta Bijoy Das was killed by masked men with machetes in Sylhet. He was said to have received death threats from Islamist extremists.

In March, another blogger, Washiqur Rahman, was hacked to death in Dhaka. Blogger Avijit Roy, who courted controversy by championing atheism and also tackling issues such as homosexuality, was killed in Dhaka in February.

Bangladesh is officially secular but critics say the government is indifferent to attacks on bloggers by Islamist militants.

Two people have been arrested, but no-one charged, in connection with this year's killings, our correspondent adds.

[Baruch]

Certainly Bangladesh and Pakistan (the rest of old Pakistan) are intolerant societies.  And in the case of Bangladesh, there is a lot of civil unrest going on.  It was a preventative civil war by West Pakistan against East Pakistan that caused India to intervene in the first place, creating a war between India and Pakistan that resulted in the creation of Bangladesh.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bangladesh_Liberation_War

Also Bangladesh is very densely populated, and there is a correlation between genocide and high person per square mile subsistence societies like Rwanda.

I don't think that Islam has much to do with their problems, since the original violence was caused by nationalism, and in times since by political anarchy.  You might want to learn more about it:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bangladesh

Of course political violence in a Muslim country, will take on Muslim characteristics.  Just as political violence in the Hindu parts of nearby india take on Hindu characteristics.

[Poison Tree]

"How long will we sit by and watch this war on Christianity? Christians are being murdered in the streets for speaking in support of biblical marriage! Who will stop these atheist Brownshirt thugs?"
Oh, wait, hm. . . 

[Baruch]

Wrong thread ;-)

Back in the day, a Jewish scholar was murdered in British Palestine.  Was he killed for burglary?  Was he killed for politics?  Was he killed for religion?  Most Jews then and now, In Israel, are not religious.  Maybe he was killed for being secular.  In any case, given we don't know ... we can only speculate about the journalists in Bangladesh.  But the politically motivated, certainly turned that murder in British Palestine to their political benefit.

[Hijiri Byakuren]

in b4 "THE RELIGION OF PEACE STRIKES AGAIN!"

I think the scariest part is that in the US, our Christian fundamentalists are only a hop, skip, and a jump away from this very same barbarity.

[Munch]

in b4 "THE RELIGION OF PEACE STRIKES AGAIN!"

I think the scariest part is that in the US, our Christian fundamentalists are only a hop, skip, and a jump away from this very same barbarity.

well, more like a few hundred years apart.

[Hijiri Byakuren]

well, more like a few hundred years apart.

What I mean is that they would still be doing it if our society tolerated it.

[Munch]

What I mean is that they would still be doing it if our society tolerated it.

And just further proving why society needs to separate itself from religion, treat it as nothing more the a fictitious fanboy/girl practice

[drunkenshoe]

Why 'assassinated'? He is MURDERED. Assassination sounds, I don't know....decorous?

[drunkenshoe]

well, more like a few hundred years apart.

You and Hijiri are from very different cultures. But you have one thing in common.

The only thing that prevents Christian extremists to murder people in the open in the United States is the power of the State.

The only thing that prevents Europeans from murdering the 'immigrants' -for any reason- is the same thing; the power of the state: they just have the required economical and social circumstances provided to live in.

Not some 'civilisation' you think that happened hundreds of years ago. Last thing that happened to Europe is the deification of the state 200 years ago; Nationalism.


Otherwise, the ape reacts the same.

[AllPurposeAtheist]

Just watch Hooeywood movies to find out just how close Americans are to slaughtering each other in the streets minus that state power that prohibits it from happening. I've heard more than enough people say they would kill someone for mearly walking in their grass so it's not much of a stretch to imagine what might happen if government grants permission to kill anyone for any reason. . Hell, plenty of people would gladly kill me just for having long hair and being a card carrying tree hugging bleeding heart liberal. .

[Munch]

Like say, order is the thing that keeps these things in check, and in time makes the ape into a civilized beast, that does consider killing one another an evil.

But that takes time and development, and a lot of contributing factors like social order, growth, standard of living and economics, only then can people put aside the idea that murdering one another is a norm.. which we sadly see in the most undeveloped countries.

[Baruch]

Individual and collective nervous breakdown aka psychotic break.  Not the only reason to kill, just the scariest.  The overall level in an individual goes up and down, partly on the basis of the collective stress.  If the individual stress gets too high (or tolerance for bull shit is too low) then the person starts acting anti-social.  If the collective stress gets to high (see Greece).  The collective tolerance for bull shit is mediated by the State.  If the State clamps down too light, then things get out of control ... if the State clamps down too hard, then they contribute to the overall stress.  That is the order you seek.  People are social animals ... you don't give birth to yourself, you take forever in dog years to mature to an adult, you have lots of holdover monkey behaviors.  Think baboons with nukes.  And you can't just go rogue into the wilderness .. that wilderness is claimed by someone (see Ruby Ridge), who will stop you ... even if you have "title" to the land, the land really belongs to the State ... you didn't claim it from the Indians, did you?  Your money belongs to the State too ... says so right on the money.  Everything you have is borrowed, or gotten by trading something borrowed.

[CrucifyCindy]

What I mean is that they would still be doing it if our society tolerated it.

Well they import their genocidal prejudice to places like Uganda, so what do you think? Fundamentalist Christians in the West actually have given support to foriegn governments to persecute the object of their hate overseas. They have outsourced hate.

[drunkenshoe]

Like say, order is the thing that keeps these things in check, and in time makes the ape into a civilized beast, that does consider killing one another an evil.

But that takes time and development, and a lot of contributing factors like social order, growth, standard of living and economics, only then can people put aside the idea that murdering one another is a norm.. which we sadly see in the most undeveloped countries.

Yes overall that's what I meant.

However, killing in the name of religion exists in The West. For your neck of woods, Irish Protestant Death Squads in last of 90s, Loyalist massacres are very recent cases considering it is not even two decades over yet. Bosnian Genocide is the same.

I don't have time and the energy, but I can imagine what would we find if we dig good enough.