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JFA condemns bloggers’ killings

By AT News |

Guwahati: Journalists’ Forum Assam (JFA) has expressed serious concern over the killing of three bloggers in Bangladesh this year and urged the Sheikh Hasina government in Dhaka to probe into the matter authentically to book the culprits under the respective laws. 

The media reports from southeast Asian nation reveal that the miscreants killed the third Bangladeshi blogger named Ananta Bijoy Das (33) in Sylhet on May 12, 2015.  Prior to him, a US based atheist blogger Avijit Roy (42) and activist-writer  Washiqur Rahman (26) were hacked to death in the national capital of Bangladesh. 

Unconfirmed source claims that all three secular bloggers were assassinated for their online articles advocating reforms in various Islamic laws by the ultraconservative Islamist elements, which are gaining grounds in the Muslim dominated country. Though claimed as a secular democratic country, Bangladesh’s legal system is partially based on Islamic laws.

“The Bangladesh government must take urgent steps to ensure the security of critical bloggers in the country,” said a statement issued by New York based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). The CPJ also argued that the Hasina government should show its  commitment in curbing this violent trend by immediately finding Das’s killers and bringing them to justice.

Meanwhile, UNESCO Director-General Irina Bokova, in a statement from Paris, voiced grave concern about the safety of citizen journalists in Bangladesh following the killing of bloggers.

“I condemn the murder of Ananta Bijoy Das and call on the authorities to ensure that those responsible for this killing are brought to justice,” said Ms Bokova adding that the punishing such attacks is indispensable to maintain free public debate and free expression by media professionals and committed citizens alike.

The JFA, in a statement issued by its president Rupam Barua and secretary Nava Thakuria, while urging the Bangladesh authorities to take visible actions against the religious fanatics in the poverty stricken populous country, also extends its moral support to the secular and democratic forces in their relentless fights against the intolerance shown to the free thinkers in that country.

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