Although Pakistan may be one of the worst Islamic shitholes on earth, it seems that Bangladesh may not be that far behind them in the ‘how shit is my Islamic shithole’ stakes. According to a report on the Voice of America website a well known secular Bangladeshi writer, Zafar Iqbal was stabbed by a violent Muslim who attacked Dr Iqbal by stabbing him in the head, in the Bangladesh region of Sylhet on March 4th 2018. Dr Iqbal, who has been a champion of free speech in Bangladesh, was rushed to a military hospital with serious head wounds and is said to be in a stable condition.
Voice of America said:
Iqbal, a longstanding champion of free speech and secularism, remains in a stable condition after being flown to a military hospital in Dhaka with stab wounds to his head.
Police detained 21-year-old Faizul Hasan, a former Islamic seminary student, and were investigating any ties to the radical groups.
Colonel Ali Haider Azad Ahmed from the elite Rapid Action Battalion unit said Hasan told investigators it was “his duty as a Muslim to resist those who work against Islam”.
“He has said Dr Zafar Iqbal was an enemy of Islam,” Ahmed told AFP.
The article also said that this attack is merely the latest in a long line of attacks by Muslim fanatics on secular thinkers, writers and activists. The attacks, which have been going on for about four years, have killed over a dozen people.
Voice of America added:
Suspected Islamist radicals have killed around a dozen such writers and bloggers, including an American atheist blogger of Bangladeshi origin.
Police have blamed homegrown Islamist extremist group Ansarullah Bangla Team — also known as Ansar-al Islam and linked to Al-Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent — for most of the attacks.
It seems that in Bangladesh it is almost as dangerous to be a secular activist there as it is in Pakistan. Despite efforts by the Bangladeshi government led by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, to deal with Islamic extremism it seems that the violent Muslims are still a serious problem.
Unless Bangladesh can get to grips with its extremism problem (something I very much doubt), it is highly likely that secular and reformist Muslim voices in Bangladesh will continue to be violently silenced by violent Muslim believers. Dr Iqbal is but another secular voice whom believing Muslims have attempted silence not just in Bangladesh but in many other parts of the Islamic world. It is cases like this that show just how incompatible Islam is with the idea of freedom. Other religions do not murder or physically wound their critics with anything like the level we find in Islam. How can we ever coexist with an ideology that produces so many people who believe that killing those who ask questions about Islam or about society is the way to go? The answer is we cannot and should not be expected to do so.
