Bangladesh: US embassy worker and gay rights activist is hacked to death

[webfact]

Bangladesh: US embassy worker and gay rights activist is hacked to death



"We abhor this senseless act of violence"

DHAKA: -- The US State Department has expressed its outrage after two men – one of whom worked at the American embassy in Bangladesh and edited the country’s only LGBT magazine – were hacked to death in the capital Dhaka.

The murders of Xulhaz Mannan, 35, a prominent gay rights activist, and of a friend, on Monday have sparked widespread condemnation. Suspected Islamist militants reportedly posed as couriers to get into an apartment where the brutal killings took place.

A third person was wounded.

Witnesses said the attackers shouted “Allahu Akbar (God is greatest)” as they fled the scene.

Mannan previously worked at the US Embassy in Dhaka.

US Ambassador Marcia Bernicat condemned the killings.

“We abhor this senseless act of violence and urge the government of Bangladesh in the strongest terms to apprehend the criminals behind these murders,” she said.

“We are outraged,” said a spokesman for the US State Department.

It comes just days after a university professor was slain in similar fashion in Rajshahi in northwestern Bangladesh in an attack claimed by ISIL which accused him of encouraging atheism.

Amnesty International condemned the killings.

“The brutal killing today of an editor of an LGBTI publication and his friend, days after a university professor was hacked to death, underscores the appalling lack of protection being afforded to a range of peaceful activists in the country,” said Champa Patel, Amnesty International’s South Asia Director.

The government denies ISIL has a presence in Bangladesh, saying homegrown radicals are behind the bloodshed.

Bangladesh, a Muslim-majority country, has seen a surge in deadly attacks against liberal and secular activists.

Five secular bloggers and a publisher have been hacked to death in the country since February 2015.

Members of religious minorities have also been targeted.

-- (c) Copyright Euronews 2016-04-26

[simon43]

If you consider the long list of recent murders of both Bangladeshi moderates/activists and some foreigners in the country, I'd say that it is not the place to be if you are not a die-hard Muzzie.

I was considering a teaching job in the country, but Bangladesh is definitely off my choice of 'interesting' destinations now.

[boomerangutang]

Muslim extremism is like small pox, and spreading. It just takes a very few buttplugs to cause such suffering. Their actions also show how insecure they are in their belief system.

[klauskunkel]

the attackers shouted “Allahu Akbar (God is greatest)” as they fled the scene.

if God is so great, why the need to flee the scene? Surely Allah will take care of his murder squads, have some faith!

Edited April 26, 2016 by klauskunkel

[Dustdevil]

I think they need to hack a few more people to death before they earn their 72 virgins. Turns out, though, their postmortem virgins are actually Immaculate Virgin Mary's. Sorry.

[ggt]

There are places worse than North Carolina...

[mesterm]

"Religion of peace". Again.

[Deli]

Definitely a great place to stay

[neverdie]

Terrible thing to do to someone.

[Mudcrab]

Muslim extremism is like small pox, and spreading. It just takes a very few buttplugs to cause such suffering. Their actions also show how insecure they are in their belief system.

Poor choice of words in this context.

[Lukecan]

Lol gay rights activist in Bangladesh, what did he expect LOL

[Jingthing]

Lol gay rights activist in Bangladesh, what did he expect LOL

So it's his fault then, for being a pioneer? Brave people need to stand up for many good causes in many countries, and yes, many will pay the highest price.

[Mudcrab]

I think they need to hack a few more people to death before they earn their 72 virgins. Turns out, though, their postmortem virgins are actually Immaculate Virgin Mary's. Sorry.

Seems they are finding it harder and harder to find true believers looking to die and find their 72 virgins.

Apparently they saw a photo of Susan Boyle and realised what a virgin actually was.

[Jingthing]

Well that gay beach holiday in Bangladesh is definitely off for this year!

The opposite of pinkwashing.

More like BLOODBATHING.

Damn fundamentalist extremists ... pure evil.

[Mudcrab]

Well that gay beach holiday in Bangladesh is definitely off for this year!

The opposite of pinkwashing.

More like BLOODBATHING.

Damn fundamentalist extremists ... pure evil.

Welcome to the real world.

[Jingthing]

Well that gay beach holiday in Bangladesh is definitely off for this year!

The opposite of pinkwashing.

More like BLOODBATHING.

Damn fundamentalist extremists ... pure evil.

Welcome to the real world.

Not everywhere, but yes, many places, not news to me.

[Jingthing]

Lol gay rights activist in Bangladesh, what did he expect LOL

So it's his fault then, for being a pioneer? Brave people need to stand up for many good causes in many countries, and yes, many will pay the highest price.

Not sure pioneer is the right description.....idiot may be more apt.

Go ahead and be a pioneer JT....don't pass the bullets...actually go and fire the gun.

Wow. So you are blaming him.

That is disgusting.

[Jingthing]

No...no..no..not blaming him at all.

Just suggesting that all the back row cowboys who feel so strongly about things actually go and do something for the cause instead of cheering on the ones in the front row.

Much easier being in the back row though isn't it??

So I should go to Bangladesh and be a gay rights activist?

Interesting.

Well I don't speak their lingo and doubt I could get a visa for that even if I wanted to, which I honestly don't, but of course I feel solidarity with their very tiny GLBT civil rights movement there.

So I find your suggestion absurd.

Living in Thailand as an expat it is illegal to get politically involved in local issues, so the weak GLBT civil rights movement here will have to fare for itself.

To add, I wouldn't want to be involved in Thai gay politics anyway, I think they wouldn't appreciate the foreign "intervention" anyway even if it was legal.

But I do support my government's position on international GLBT CIVIL RIGHTS.

I was personally involved in the gay rights movement in the U.S. in the earlier days of the very first Gay Pride events there. Not only in the USA. The first on the PLANET.

I was definitely on the front lines, starting from age 15, at a time and place where a kid coming out was not something you even see on t.v. So just a tad "pioneering" that. (Publishing an interview with historic gay activist Frank Kameny, who coined the slogan GAY IS GOOD in my SCHOOL paper did the trick.)

Happily, avoided being murdered.

Also, actually people are murdered for being GLBT all over the world, including Thailand and the USA.

So it's not fair to say it's only an issue in the Islamic world or the fundamentalist Christian world as in Uganda. It's a global issue of varying severity.

Anyway, in Bangladesh obviously more people will be murdered by these evil fundamentalists ... bloggers who want to question religious dogma, atheist bloggers, GLBT people, etc.

What can be done from abroad? Probably not a heck of a lot. It seems the USA position on such things just makes them crazier.

I doubt there are many foreigners actively working within nations with severe anti-GLBT oppression (aside from some embassy staff who might deal with the issue), but often press people, amateur or not, get the word out on what's happening in those places, but such people deserve praise and admiration.

Edited April 26, 2016 by Jingthing

[bangkapi]

At least they are not doing that to climate change doubters.

[Jingthing]

Al Queda takes credit for this, not Daesh.

Competing brands.

NEW DELHI (AP) — The Bangladeshi branch of al-Qaida claimed responsibility Tuesday for the killing of a gay rights activist and his friend, undermining the prime minister's insistence just hours earlier that her political opponents were to blame for the attack and for a rising tide of violence against secular activists and writers.

The claim by Ansar-al-islam — which said it targeted the two men on Monday night because they were "pioneers of practicing and promoting homosexuality" — raised doubts about Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's repeated assurances that authorities have the security situation under control.

http://www.sfgate.com/news/crime/article/Bangladesh-vows-justice-in-killing-of-USAID-7366289.php

Interesting that they used the word PIONEERS, as I did before.