New
Age Islam Special Correspondent
28 August
2020
Photo Shaikh Hasina
Courtesy Dhaka Tribune
----
There is no
denying the fact that with Shaikh Hasina coming to power in 2009, the extremist
and terrorist elements had been subdued to a great extent and the country
progressed economically. Minorities had a comparatively better life under the
Awami League government led by Hasina.
During the
BNP-Jamaat government led by Khaleda Zia, Bangladesh had become a hotbed of
terrorism and religious extremist. The two biggest terrorist attacks in the
Khaleda Zia regime were the grenade attacks on an election rally of Awami
League in Dhaka on 21 August 2004 in which more than 20 leaders and cadres
including the President of Awami League' Women's wing Ivy Rehman were killed
and Shaikh Hasina's hearing faculty was partially damaged, and, 500
simultaneous bomb explosions in 63 districts of Bangladesh conducted by
terrorist Bangla Bhai on 17 August 2005 which shook the country.
During that
period, the Islamists of Bangladesh would openly chant,
"Sobai
Hobey Taliban, Bangladesh Hobey Afghan".
(All will become Taliban; Bangladesh will turn into Afghanistan).
Bangla Bhai
was executed after Hasina came to power as well as most of the accused in the
election rally attacks were also sentenced. War Crimes Tribunal set up by her
government also sentenced to death or life imprisonment nine leaders of
Jama'at-e-Islami and two leaders of BNP in 2012-13.
However, it
seems that though the terrorist attacks have stopped, the Shaikh Hasina's
government has not been able to contain the scourge of religious extremism in
the country.
Since 2013,
dozens of secular bloggers, human rights activists, publishers and writers,
both from the Muslim and minority communities have been attacked and hacked to
death by Islamists of the country. In 2013, the Islamist groups of the country
had prepared a list of 83 secular bloggers and human rights activists and
circulated it. After that, some of them were even hacked to death. Some of the
victims are Ananta Bijoy Das, Niloy Neel, Avijit and Washiqur Rahman. All the
four were killed in 2015, that is, during Shaikh Hasina's government whom they
had supported in the hope of freedom from religious extremism and violence.
Photo Photo Niloy Neel
Courtesy BBC
----
Till then, the local Islamists were involved in the killings. But since 2016, ISIS and Al Qaida's name started to emerge as the driving force behind the killing of secular bloggers and activists.
In May
2016, a professor of English in Rajshahi University was stabbed in the neck by
a student. But the most intriguing part of the incident was that the fatal
attack on the professor was lauded by the ISIS's online media agency. The
release said that the price was punished for propagating atheism. It should be
recalled that the ISIS had established its so-called Caliphate in Syria and
Iraq jn 2014 and had influenced the extremists of Bangladesh.
Two days
after the attack, on the professor, two bloggers Xulhaz Mannan and Tonoy
Manumdar were killed by some extremists. According to media reports, a group
affiliated to Al Qaida claimed the responsibility of the killings.
-Photo Asad Noor
Courtesy NDTV
-----
The latest
victim of the radical Islamists of Bangladesh is a Muslim blogger Asaduzzaman
Noor popularly known as Asad Noor who had to leave Bangladesh and is currently
hiding in India.
Asad Noor’s
case is different in that he and his family were harassed not only by the
religious extremists but also by the Bangladesh government. His passport was
confiscated and the Bangladesh police raided his house a number of times to
pressurise him to surrender. In July, the police arrested his parents and other
family members and kept them in illegal detention for two days. His crime is
that he had been writing against growing religious extremism in the country and
has defended the minority Buddhist community against the attack of the
extremist Muslims on the temples and homes of Buddhists. He has been charged
under the country's draconian Digital Security Act which is a de facto
blasphemy law.
Photo Asad Noor
-----
Earlier in
2017, he was arrested from Dhaka airport on the basis of an FIR filed by the
leader of a local Islamic organisation Mufti Omar Farooque accusing him of
blasphemy.
In 2020,
many activists have been arbitrarily arrested, or kidnapped or held in pretrial
detention for indefinite periods.
Fearing
arrested or murder, Asad Noor left Bangladesh last year and has been hiding in India
since then.
He says
that he was harassed because he defended the Buddhists and tried to save them
from attacks of Islamists. In 2012, radical Muslims had attacked the minority
Buddhist community in the south-eastern town of Ramu, vandalised four temples
and set ablaze several houses. Last year, the extremist Muslims again tried to
attack the Buddhist community in Rangunia in the South-eastern part of the
country following a dispute on the land on which a temple is built.
Asad Noor
defended them and tried to save the Buddhists from another attack. Due to this,
he became the target of the Islamists. But the unfortunate aspect of this
episode is that, Ehsan Mahmood, the younger brother of the Information Minister
Hasan Mahmood who is also the joint General Secretary of the ruling Awami
League is actively involved in the attacks on the Buddhists and the harassment
of the family if Asad Noor..Asad has alleged that Ehsan is involved in a plot
to provoke the Islamists against him. For that purpose, a fake Facebook account
had been created in the name of a Buddhist monk and anti-Islam propaganda
material is posted on that account.
This shows
that Ehsan Mahmood is influenced by the extremist ideology and is using his
political connections to victimise not only minorities but also those who have
defended them.
The
harassment of Asad Noor and his family by the extremists and the Hasina
government has been condemned by world human rights bodies. The South Asia Wing
of Amnesty International has condemned their harassment. Christians of
Bangladesh have also joined world human rights bodies to demand an end to the
harassment of the parents of Asad Noor.
Shaikh
Hasina should look into the extremist elements that have crept into her
government and bureaucracy. She and her family have been a victim of this
religious extremism and terrorism and the people of Bangladesh have paid a huge
price for it. She has to purge her party and her government of the extremist
elements before it's too late to save Bangladesh from another tragedy and from
the ignominy of being branded anti-minority.
URL: https://newageislam.com/radical-islamism-jihad/the-harassment-bangladeshi-blogger-asad/d/122743
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