In the name of Islam.

There is a secular uprising in Bangladesh. Hundreds of thousands of people are demanding death penalty for the war criminal Islamists, and the banning of Jamaat-e-Islami, the political party of the Islamic terrirists.

Delawar Hossain Sayedee, one of the most notorious criminals belonging to Jamaat-e-Islami, was handed a death sentence by the International war criminal tribunals, after almost a month of non-stop protests against the war criminals at Shahbag. After the verdict was issued, Sayedee’s Islamist followers vandalised cities, burned down Hindu and Buddhist temples, terrorized the whole country, killed innocent people. There is no doubt that in today’s Bangladesh, the Islamists are much more powerful and ferocious than ever.

Where is the world media?

Political Islam in Bangladesh

jamaat

Jamaat-e-Islami was founded at Islamia Park, Lahore in 1941 by Sayyid Abul A’la Maududi as a movement to promote Socio-Political Islam. 75 people were present at its first meeting. Now it is one of the largest Islamic political parties in the world. Maududi’s ideology influences Islamic groups around the world including the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt.

In Bangladesh, Jamaat-e-Islami is nothing but an Islamic terrorist organization. It kills whoever opposes Islam. It is true that Jamaat-e-Islami uses Islam to protect themselves. It is also true that Islam supports the ideology of Jamaat-e-Islami, encourages everything whatever Jamaat-e-Islami is doing, like murdering infidels, killing and torturing non-Muslims, stoning women to death for being engaged in unIslamic activities, building missionaries for the spread of Islam etc.

You know about the barbarism of Jamaat-e-Islami. Don’t you? You do not know the fact that if you do not like Jamaat-e-Islami, you won’t like Islam. You think ideologically Jamaat-e-Islami and Islam are different, but they are not. Islam approves everything Islamic terrorist organizations do in the name of Islam. To find out the similarities between the doctrines of Jamaat-e-Islami and Islam, you have to know Islam properly, you have to read the Quran and the Hadith minutely and you have to interpret everything correctly.

Jamaat-e-Islami is not a political party of peace as Islam is not a religion of peace.

Bangladesh! A fucked-up country! (Warning: Violent image)

rajib

Rajib Haider Shuvo, a 26 years old architect, one of the organizers of the Shahbag movement, a talented young atheist blogger was brutally killed by the Islamists last night. His throat was slit. His criticism of Islam was far milder than my criticism of Islam which were published 26 years ago in Bangladesh. He wrote blogs under the pen name thaba baba. I wrote my anti-religion articles and books in late 80’s using my real name. Thaba baba was killed. I survived but I was forced to leave Bangladesh 20 years ago. I would surely get killed like Rajib if I lived in that country. I was on the top of the hit list made by Islamic terrorists.

Bangladesh is a hopelessly pathetic country. A pure fucked-up country. The country has been controlled by the Islamists. The society has been rottened by the Islamists. The people have been manipulated by the Islamists. Atheists get killed. A few weeks ago, another Bengali atheist blogger, Asif Mohiuddin, was brutally stabbed by the Islamists. He quite brilliantly mocked Allah and Islam. Asif is now fighting for his life. No doubt, Bangladesh sucks.

The Islamization of Bangladesh started in the mid ’80s. Most people remained silent for decades. Now some young bloggers and online activists started a country-wide awareness campaign against war criminals. A very few of them are against Islam and Islamists. Their Shahbag movement could turn to a positive political movement for a secular democracy. But Islamists already have shown their strength by stabbing and killing enlightened bloggers. It will definitely scare many people at Shahbag.

A war is needed in Bangladesh, a war between two different ideas, secularism and fundamentalism, between rational, logical thinking and irrational blind faith, between those who strive to go forwards, and those who strive to go backwards, a war between modernism and barbarism, humanism and Islamism, between innovation and tradition, future and past, between those who value freedom and those who do not.

Will an uncompromising fight against Islamists be possible in a already fucked-up country?

Shahbag is a new Tahrir Square

Shahbag1

After Arab Spring, Tahrir revolution, and the victory of Muslim Brotherhood and Islamists in Egypt, I am not impressed by the crowd. Bangladesh’s Shahbag is now like a tiny Tahrir Square. Facebook and Twitter generation gathered at Shahbag to demand death penalty for Abdul Kader Mullah, the war criminal. He raped and killed people during Bangladesh liberation war in 1971, more than 40 years ago. The war criminal gets life imprisonment, but the Shahbag crowd is not happy, wants death penalty for him. As more people join the crowd, Shahbag starts asking death penalty for all war criminals. The fact is, all war criminals are Islamists. They did not want to be separated from Pakistan, a country based on Islam.

The Shahbag crowd is desperate to execute an old war-criminal-Islamist. What would they do to the millions of growing young Islamists in Bangladesh? I questioned. The crowd has made it clear that they are not against Islam or Islamists, they are against criminals, rapists, and murderers of 1971. The Tahrir crowd was against Mubarak but not against Islamists. The Shahbag crowd is quite similar to the Tahrir crowd. The Shahbag crowd is against war criminals but not against Islamists.

Four hundred thousand Islamists gathered in the streets demanded my execution by hanging in Bangladesh in 1994, much bigger than today’s Shahbag crowd. In 20 years, Islamists have gained their strength quite a lot. The Bangladesh government filed a case against me on the charges of hurting religious feelings and threw me out of the country. No government has shown courage yet to allow me to enter the country since then. Since then no people, no organization, no media protested against the heinous crime committed by the fundamentalists and the state against an innocent writer.

I believe if Islamists now want to have a public meeting in Bangladesh, they will be able to make 100 times bigger crowd than the Shahbag crowd. More people go to Madrasas than to facebook or twitter or blogs. More people are brainwashed to be Islamists than to be non-Islamists, more people are conservative, religious than progressive and enlightened. Much more women are veiled now than before. Now much more men go to mosques to pray than before. I lost hopes I had for Bangladesh many years ago. I probably should have new hopes, because young people at least are fighting against war criminals, a bunch of rapists and mass murderers, who have been forgiven, given opportunities, adored, respected, empowered by the worthless politicians and military since the independence of Bangladesh. I sympathize with young people at Shahbag, I can show my solidarity, but I can not support capital punishment for anymore, not even for the biggest enemy of mine, for whatever crimes they commit, not even for my assassin. I strongly believe everyone has the right to live. Bad ruling systems, bad societal systems, bad education or lack of education make people bad, corrupt, criminal, extremists.

I asked a Shahbag revolutionary, ‘Abdul Kader Mullah is now 64. He will die in prison while serving life sentence. Why are you asking for his execution?’
He said, ‘He will be freed by the next government.’
I said, ‘Then you should start protesting again the way you are protesting now. There will be second Shahbag!’
He did not like my arguments, so he called me bad names.

If those war criminals or Islamists want to kill a person, that is me, not the Shahbag crowd. They know very well who their real enemy is. They hounded me for decades. I am against all kinds of religious fundamentalists, against Islamists, against war criminals, but I am also against the death penalty. People in an uncivilized corrupt country drowned in Islamism get crazy to hang an old man. By killing Abdul Kader Mullah along with all war criminals, you will not be able to get rid of poverty, illiteracy, ignorance, patriarchy, misogyny, corruption, Islamism – your real enemies. Until you fight your real enemies, none of your revolution is a real revolution.

Bangladesh sucks

Bangladesh sucks. Yes it does. It does everything to make Islamists ruin the country. It started a war against me more than 20 years ago. Hundreds of thousands of Islamists took to the streets for my execution by hanging, they did it because I told the truth about the incompatibility between Islam and women’s rights. The government filed cases against me on the charges of hurting religious feeling of the people and I was forced to stay in hiding for months and then was forced to leave the country. I have not been allowed to return to my country since then. Politicians or army whoever ruled the country did not take any action against the Islamists who threatened to kill the writers and intellectuals for criticizing Islam. A renowned writer, Ahmed Sharif, was attacked by the Islamists. Shamsur Rahman, a famous poet was also attacked. Islamists almost killed Humayun Azad for writing a novel that made fun of them. A cartoonist called Arifur Rahman was in jail after the government said his drawings had insulted Muslims. Asif Mohiuddin was arrested 2 years ago for his blogs that criticized Islam. Now he is stabbed by the Islamists.

It can be dangerous to be an atheist. In Bangladesh, a popular atheist blogger was attacked and stabbed by a group of Islamic fundamentalists in a suburb of the capital city of Uttara on Monday night.

According to reports, Asif Mohiuddin was stabbed multiple times in the neck and upper body by three unidentified attackers near his office in Dhaka’s upscale Uttara district. Friends of Mohiuddin, who were with him at the time of the attack, blamed “Islamic fundamentalists.”

As of Tuesday, Jan. 15, Mohiuddin was “improving but still not out of danger” at the Dhaka Medical College Hospital, where surgeons spent more than three hours trying to repair the damage done by the would-be assassins.

Mohiuddin’s blog, is one of the most visited web pages in Bangladesh. Mohiuddin is known for advocating what some have termed “Militant Atheism” in a country where Islam is the state religion, and over 90% of Bangladesh’s 153 million people identify as Muslim.

The biggest harm Bangladesh did to herself is not really by killing or imprisoning atheists or forcing atheists to go into exile, but by forcing millions of citizens to keep their mouth shut forever. They no more express their opinions that the majority finds different.

Secularism was one of the pillars of new born Bangladesh. It was supposed to become more liberal and more secular than Pakistan. But in four decades, the rulers of the country managed to make it a truly Islamist country. The country was separated from Pakistan. But the truth is, Bangladesh is no better than Pakistan.

Muslim priests rape children.

An Imam and his friends gang raped a girl in Narshingdi, Bangladesh just two days ago. It is quite common that Imams or Muslims priests rape. For rape, they prefer children to grown-ups. I do not understand why people who believe in Islam get angry with Imams for raping girls. Imams believe in Islamic laws more than their country’s civil laws. Islam doesn’t advise men not to have sex with children. Prophet Muhammad himself married a 6-year-old child. The marriage was consummated when 6-year-old child turned 9-year-old. We have created a law that says sex with children, with or without consent, is rape, and rape is punishable by law. But Allah’s laws are different from the laws of the civilized countries that care about women’s rights, human rights, children’s rights. [Read more…]

Wal-Mart, Disney,Sears knew they were buying clothing from a ‘high risk’ factory!

Tazreen factory fire killed 112 people in Bangladesh. Disney, Wal-Mart, Sears, IKEA, C&A, Carrefour etc. bought clothing from Tazreen despite its very poor safety records. Tazreen’s deadly ‘High Risks’ was ignored. The Western companies talk a lot about ethical buying and ethical sourcing! Aren’t they just hypocrites?

Factory fire is very common in Bangladesh. Workers are burned to death almost every year. But the owners do not take initiatives to make their factories safe. Workers who survived Tazreen factory fire said, exit doors were locked, fire extinguishers didn’t work and managers had told them to go back to work after the fire alarm rang.
[Read more…]

Fatwas continue

I was born and brought up in Bangladesh. The Muslim fundamentalists issued fatwa against me and set price on my head. The government filed a case against me on the charges of blasphemy. I was forced to leave my country 19 years ago. Since then I have not been allowed to return to my country. I am considered the biggest enemy of the Muslim fundamentalists. All Islam loving people are supposed to live peacefully forever if only I leave the country. A hell of a lot of compromises have been done with fundamentalists. How come they still continue issuing fatwas? Bangladesh’s newspaper wrote:

Offences in the name of fatwa continue in the country despite their being declared illegal by the courts is unacceptable. However, the continued proactive role of the High Court on the issue is encouraging. [Read more…]