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Threatened continually, blogger Bijoy tried to leave Bangladesh
[Dhaka Tribune] Threatened for quite a long time, Blogger Ananta Bijoy was trying to leave Bangladesh for the last two months, Bijoy's friend and colleague Asif Mohiuddin told German broadcaster Deutsche Welle. Ananta Bijoy, a banker by profession, was hacked dead in a machete attack this morning, the latest casualty in a series of barbaric liquidations of free thinkers, allegedly carried out by Islamist fundamentalists."I was helping Bijoy get out of the country for the last two months. I got his papers together and submitted them to some organizations in order to get him out. "He was being threatened for a long time. He told me many times that he was on the [terrorists'] hit list and that he was still at home because of the threats. Some people attacked his house a few months ago. He was afraid and panicking. I told him not to leave his house, but he had to go to work," said Mohiuddin, a scholar now in Germany who survived both a similar attempt on his life in 2013, and being incarcerated Drop the rod and step away witcher hands up! here in Dhaka. "He was a very good friend and I am very upset," he mourned. Asif then expressed his opinions on the series attacks on online activists, thinly veiling a hint that government could be supporting the fundamentalists by being reluctant to act: "Maybe they don't care, or maybe they are afraid of them[fundamentalists]. I don't know. But after the death of Avijit Roy, the prime minister spoke to his father Ajay Roy. This was never mentioned in the media. It was a secret call to apologise; our prime minister thinks that her support for atheists would project a bad image for her party. "Our leaders don't want to be seen as supporters of secularists or atheists. They want to show that they are very Islamic; this is why fundamentalists have the courage to kill bloggers," he concluded. He then revisited the attack he survived: "When they attacked me, it lasted barely 30 seconds, but I was badly injured in that short time. Avijit Roy's wife told me that their attack lasted a minute at most. Before people around the victims could react, the murderers made away." Posted by: Fred 2015-05-13 |
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