Blogger killings: Justifying the unjustifiable

A Facebook status published today of someone whom I do not know (and shall not name) sought to justify the killings yesterday of Dipan and the attack on Tutul, both publishers of Avijit Roy. The status has since been removed, so I paraphrase :

"I have no sympathy for those bloggers that have been killed. The Gonojagaron Mancho have brought it upon themselves by calling for the hanging of people, despite an unfair trial process. They deserve what they get."

This is so wrong, on many levels. There is simply no way that one can justify the 'blogger killings' on the basis that the people killed may have been part of a political demand that those convicted of crimes before the International Crimes Tribunal should be hung.

The men who killed the 'bloggers' - or their publisher - simply decided on their own that these people had committed some sort of crime for which they deserved to be killed. And then they killed them. That is entirely beyond the law and judicial system. There is only one word for it. And that is murder.

Yes, the Gonojagaron Mancho have called and are calling for hanging of those convicted of war crimes - but they do so only at the end of a judicial process in which charges are laid against the accused; where the charges for which the men are accused allow for the death penalty; after a trial has taken place in which witnesses are summoned; and a conviction is given by the court and an appeal process is permitted.

Whatever the inadequacies of the process - and in my view there are many - the Mancho's calling for the hanging of those who have committed these crimes (though in my view misplaced) is a million miles away from killing, or supporting the killing of bloggers, who have not committed any crime, have not been subject to any judicial process, and have not been charged for an offense that allows the death penalty.

It may be the case that calling for hanging following a perceived unfair process, has allowed Islamic extremists and others to think that they are then justified in murdering those who support the calling for the hanging (as indeed this Facebook status shows). But any attempt to link the two is totally unjustified.

The Facebook status - which I guess reflects the views of a considerable section of those who are critical of the International Crimes Tribunal - is very revealing.

It shows clearly that these people - pro-Jamaati, in the main, I imagine - are only critical of the International Crimes Tribunal because they are supporters of the accused who are to be subject to the death penalty - and not because they are interested in due process in any principled way.

These people are not concerned about fair trials, or rights of the accused as such - in fact they are  quite happy for the bloggers to be killed without any judicial process at all. If their patrons or parties came back to power in Bangladesh, I would put my bottom dollar that they would lose any interest in due process and would be happy to see the government prosecute unfairly those people who are their political enemies. And indeed put them to death.

Of course, this is not to say that the criticisms of the tribunal, held by these same supporters of the accused, are not correct. Only that they are deploying the arguments opportunistically, and they would be quite happy with the current ICT process if their political enemies were the accused.

RAB and the British blogger-killer arrest

The FIR lodged with
the police three months
ago

On Tuesday, Bangladesh's supposedly elite counter-terrorist organization, the  Rapid Action Battalion organized a press conference to announce the arrest of three men, one of whom was a British citizen. At the press conference they claimed that the three had been arrested late the previous night or early that morning, and had confessed to membership of the militant organization, Ansarullah Bangla Team and to the killing of two of the four bloggers killed this year in Bangladesh.

The story the police gave about the arrest was quite detailed. One of the men was arrested on Monday evening, and he gave information that led onto the arrest of the other two men, including the British citizen Towhidul Rahman, outside Star Kebab in Dhanmondi, Dhaka.

It has now come to light that the police story about his detention on early Tuesday morning is not likely to be true.

As reported in Al Jazeera, the security guard and the caretaker of the building in which Tawhidul Rahman lived confirm that he was picked up on 28 May 2015, three months earlier, by people who introduced themselves as people from the 'administration/detective branch'. Moreover, later that day, the sister filed a 'general diary' (known here as a GD, and is the means by which the public provide the police with information about a crime or possible crime)with the police station informing them of her brother's 'arrest' by 'DB officers', and five days later filed a First Information Report - known here as an FIR, which is the way in which a criminal case starts) with similar information.

Silencing people in Bangladesh

Avijit Roy, killed by Islamic extremists
in Dhaka on 27 Feb 2015, with his wife
Rafida, who was seriously injured
in the attack

Attempts to silence journalists, writers and bloggers in Bangladesh come from all political directions, but in this country, at least, it is only religious extremists, seeking to silence those who write in support of secularism, atheism or rationalism, who go so far as to attack and kill.

Religious zealots don't just want secularists to stop writing critically about religion. They want to kill them. And too often they are successful.

The vicious murder on Thursday of Avijit Roy (who wrote for the humanist, rationalist secular blog of Mukto-Mona) was preceded by the fatal attacks on the poet and writer Humayan Azad in February 2004 and the blogger Ahmed Rajib Haider in February 2013. And in January 2013, Asif Mohiuddin also escaped death after being attacked by religious zealots.

So, when considering freedom of speech in Bangladesh, and how different individuals and groups within the country seek to silence those who write about this or that subject, it is important to keep in mind that it is only the religious fundamentalists that kill.

Sure, it is right to be critical of others* (including the government) who from a different perspective try to silence speech and writing in Bangladesh -  whether it be to stop publication of writing critical of the government, or of commentary on the International Crimes Tribunal, or questioning aspects of the official narrative of the 1971 war, or whatever if may be.

And, it is certainly very unpleasant to have criminal or other cases filed against you, or be abused on social networks,  or have attempts made to destroy your reputation or have other things done to make one's life difficult (which of course the religious extremists may also try to do)

But these 'silencers' do not attack or kill people. They don't seek to physically harm you.

And that is an important distinction to remember.

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* Please note that 'others' does not include, or in any way refer to, the judiciary.

The rise, fall ... and rise of bangladesh bloggers

This is my second blog on Bangladesh.

The first one was on the International Crimes Tribunal in Bangladesh and provides detailed accounts and analysis of the prosecutions of those alleged to have committed international crimes during the 1971 war of Bangladesh. To read about the tribunal do look at the website

This blog will be much wider in its content and will provide an opportunity for me to write on wider Bangladesh political issues - when space or time or subject matter does not allow me to publish in the newspaper for which I work, New Age.

There are already some excellent blogs on Bangladesh in the English language - in particular Alal-o-Dulal - but I hope that this one will add to the variety of analysis that already exists in the blogosphere.

Of course, these days in Bangladesh, to be a 'blogger' comes with some very particular baggage. 

It was 'bloggers' who were said to have initiated the Shahbag movement (with its demand for the death penalty of 1971 war criminals), and whilst the bloggers were initially lauded, they soon became the object of derision as Amar Desh and other papers came to describe them as 'atheists' as a way to attack the shahbag movement. 

Soon, rather bizarrely, the concept of 'atheist bloggers' became a term of art in Bangladesh journalism as well as in political analysis as the Islamic right captured the new discourse, placing the Shahbag movement on the defensive and facilitating the rise of relatively new movements like Hefazet Islam and their 13 point demands for an Islamic Bangladesh. This resulted in the government deciding to arrest a number of bloggers who they alleged had written material that 'hurt religious sentiment.'

Shahbag's  discourse about 1971 war crimes has now been eclipsed by a dangerous discourse on the role of religion in the country - with every political leader falling over themselves to prove how religious they really are. 

And yes, this all happened in a few short months in Bangladesh. It has been a roller coaster ride.

It goes without saying, of course, that there will be nothing in this blog that will touch on religion!

Enjoy.