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Attackers armed with machetes killed a
blogger in Bangladesh on Friday, the fourth such killing of an online critic of
religious extremism in six months, prompting calls by human rights groups for a
swift and thorough investigation.
Militants
have targeted secularist writers in Bangladesh in recent years, while the
government has tried to crack down on hardline Islamist groups seeking to make
the majority-Muslim South Asian nation of 160 million people a sharia-based
state.
Niloy
Chatterjee, 40, an advocate of secularism, was killed in his flat in the
capital Dhaka, said police official Mustafizur Rahman.
"We are
speechless. He was demanding justice for the killing of other bloggers,"
said Imran Sarker, head of a network of activists and bloggers.
"Who
will be next for demanding justice for Niloy?"
Chatterjee,
who used the pen-name Niloy Neel, was a critic of religious extremism that led
to bombings in mosques and the killing of civilians, Sarker said.
Chatterjee
was also one of hundreds of bloggers driving a movement demanding the death
penalty for Islamist leaders accused of atrocities in Bangladesh's 1971 war of
independence.
Prime
Minister Sheikh Hasina opened an inquiry into war crimes in 2010.
A tribunal
has since convicted several senior leaders of an Islamist party, who in 1971
opposed the breakaway of Bangladesh, then known as East Pakistan, from
Pakistan, of various crimes.
They denied
wrongdoing.
U.N. human
rights investigators and rights groups condemned Friday's killing and called
for a thorough investigation.
"The
violent killing of another critical voice in Bangladesh shows that serious
threats to freedom of expression persist in the country," U.N. special
rapporteur on freedom of expression David Kaye and the special rapporteur on
extrajudicial killings Christof Heyns said in a joint statement issued in
Geneva.
Amnesty
International urged Bangladesh to send a strong message that killings aimed at
silencing dissenting voices were despicable and would not be tolerated.
"Thorough,
effective, independent and impartial investigations must be carried out
promptly to ensure that all those responsible are brought to justice in fair
trials without recourse to the death penalty," Amnesty said in a
statement.
The
Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) also appealed to the Hasina government
to solve "this barbaric murder".
In
February, machete-wielding assailants killed a U.S. citizen of Bangladeshi
origin and critic of religious militancy, Avijit Roy, and seriously injured his
wife and fellow blogger, Rafida Bonya Ahmed, after they left a book fair.
On March 30,
Washiqur Rahman, another secular blogger who aired his outrage over Roy's death
on social media, was killed in a similar fashion. Another secular blogger,
Ananta Bijoy Das, was hacked to death on May 12.
The
Indian-born head of al-Qaeda in the Indian subcontinent claimed responsibility
in May for a series of attacks in Bangladesh and Pakistan, including Roy's. The
United States said it was unable to confirm the claim.
News and photo courtesy reuters
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