EP55: Bangladesh's Secular Bloggers: Risking Their Lives for Freedom

“Let Bangladesh revoke the citizenship of these enemies of Islam! If not, we will hunt them down in whatever part of God’s world we find them and kill them right there!” These words appeared on a kill list of about twenty secular bloggers in Bangladesh, published by the Islamic terrorist group Ansarullah Bangla Team. One of the names on the list was Raihan Abir, who joins us on this episode of Secular Jihadists. Raihan's friend and colleague, Avijit Roy, with whom he co-authored their book Philosophy of Disbelief, was hacked to death by Islamic fundamentalists with machetes in early 2015. Also hacked to death the same year were Washiqur Rahman, Niloy Neel, Ananta Bijoy Das, Faisal Dipan (Raihan's publisher), and several others. "I knew it was my turn," Raihan said chillingly at the time. And he was right. After escaping several threats to his life, this brilliant young editor of Mukto-Mona, a Bengali/English blog on freethinking and science co-founded by Avijit and his wife Bonya, eventually found refuge by moving his family to Canada. In 2016, Raihan Abir won the PEN Canada/Ken Filkow Prize for showing extraordinary courage in opposing restraint on freedom of expression and ideas. This is an incredible story from a real free speech hero. Don't miss this.

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Raihan on Twitter: https://twitter.com/raihan_abir 

Raihan Wins the PEN Canada Award: https://pencanada.ca/news/pen-canadaken-filkow-prize-awarded-to-raihan-abir/ 

Raihan in The Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/sep/01/bangladesh-violence-raihan-abir-canada 

Raihan in The Globe and Mail: https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/couple-finds-sanctuary-in-canada-to-escape-killings-of-writers-in-bangladesh/article27890972/ 

Avijit Roy hacked to death: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-31656222 

2013 Protest to Hang Atheist Bloggers: https://www.vice.com/en_ca/article/bnyq8w/bangladeshs-islamists-call-for-death-of-atheist-bloggers