Secular publishers latest targets of deadly violence in Bangladesh

For secular writers in Bangladesh, free speech is becoming increasingly lethal. And with threats to writers coming from at least three different militant groups, security officials have struggled to stay ahead of the violence.

This year, four nonreligious bloggers have been killed in grisly attacks claimed by Ansarullah Bangla Team, a local Muslim militant group. Dozens of other writers have received death threats via social media. On Saturday, secular publisher Faisal Arefin Deepan was hacked to death in his Dhaka office, becoming the fifth in a series of slain writers.

Hours before Deepan’s attack, assailants broke into another secular publishing office in Dhaka, stabbing and shooting two staff writers and publisher Ahmed Rahim Tutul. All three survived the attack, but Tutul remains in critical condition.

Ansar al-Islam, the Bangladeshi wing of al-Qaeda on the Indian Subcontinent, swiftly issued a statement claiming responsibility for both Saturday attacks, according to SITE Intelligence Group, which monitors online jihadist postings.

Both publishing houses produced controversial titles by the atheist blogger Avijit Roy, who was brutally murdered in February. Roy, a U.S. citizen of Bangladeshi origin, wrote widely on science and religion and was openly critical of Islamic extremism.

“They have targeted bloggers, they have targeted writers … and they have now targeted publishers,” said Kaiser Hamidul Haq, an English professor at Bangladesh’s University of Liberal Arts. “It seems that the attacks are slowly escalating. Everyone is very apprehensive, especially in relation to the failures of the law enforcement agencies.”

The day after the attacks, the Bangladeshi Daily Star reported an anonymous death threat sent to Farid Ahmed of Somoy publishing house for producing books with an atheistic worldview.

According to The New York Times, Ansar al-Islam’s statement accused Deepan and Tutul of greater blasphemy than atheist bloggers. “We are targeting those who are insulting our Prophet in the name of atheism, free speech, or free thinking,” the group claimed. The Dhaka Tribune features a list of planned victims extracted from Ansar al-Islam’s Twitter page. The hit list includes key influencers and communicators—teachers, engineers, doctors, writers, poets, intellectuals, editors, actors, and journalists.

But Bangladeshi officials have rejected the al-Qaeda claims, instead focusing on the Ansarullah Bangla Team, according to Muniril Islam, senior police detective in Dhaka. Late last month, the Ansarullah Bangla Team sent a six-point email threat to several Bangladeshi media outlets, prompting a police probe. The group promised to attack if the media did not adhere to sharia-based guidelines: “If your freedom of expression breaks the limit we have set, every news media unit should be prepared to face [the consequences],” the email warned.

In recent weeks, Islamic violence has escalated in the impoverished Muslim-majority nation, with attacks becoming increasingly audacious. The most recent have occurred in well-populated areas and in broad daylight.

The Islamic State (ISIS) claimed responsibility for a deadly bombing and the murder of two foreigners last month. But the Bangladeshi government stoutly rejected those claims as inauthentic, denying ISIS exists in the country.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.