Last Wednesday, September
23rd, the Guardian reported that a worldwide execution list
comprised of bloggers and other writers and activists was published by the
Bangladeshi Islamic militant group, Ansarullah Bangla Team (ABT), in hopes of
achieving a demand: the canceling of citizenship in Bangladesh for “enemies of
Islam…education…otherwise they will be killed wherever they can be found in the
Almighty’s world.” Working closely with an Al-Qaida organization, ABT is
thought to be behind the year and a half long spree of horrific homicides of
those who have spoken out against radical Islamic religious teachings. Regarding
one of the blogger murders, the ABT leader and two of his associates were already
arrested earlier in September. The most recent deaths occurred in February and
March in Dhaka, where blogger victims were brutally killed with machetes and, according
to an earlier article, meat cleavers. In relation to the March attack of
27-year-old Washiqur Rahman, law enforcement filed charges against five ABT
members. The U.S.-surviving wife of Avijit Roy, the “science writer and blog
moderator” American citizen murdered in February, is one of the targets on the
list. Although one Bangladeshi blogger adamantly claims, along with others
listed, that he will continue writing, he has fled to Europe for safety. There
has been no response from Bangladesh authorities, yet in the past, rather than
supporting free speech and providing protection to those threatened, Dhaka
authorities have told bloggers to refrain from inciting “religious issues”—a
position which the Human Rights Watch group has challenged.
No doubt anti-Islamic
extremism writing and blogging has taken on a high level of risk as the
Bangladesh government is slow to stop militants and their atrocities. Given
that two U.S. bloggers are on the list as well as nine from the UK, seven from
Germany, and one each from Canada and Sweden, the U.S. and European countries
have new security threats to address. Some have questioned the validity and
origin of the list, but with or without such a list, the record of recent blogger,
writer, and activist murders should be enough to warrant serious alarm.
Amanda Zgonina
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