Persecution of atheists

A Bangladeshi law student who posted against Islamism on his Facebook page has been murdered, police said on April 7, the latest in a series of killings of secular activists and bloggers in the country.

A coalition of human rights groups called on the United States on Dec. 21 to grant temporary visas to secular writers from Bangladesh after a series of bloody attacks by Islamist militants .

The world?s biggest book fair opened in Frankfurt on Oct 13 with a press conference by British-Indian writer Salman Rushdie, saying ?Expression of speech is fundamental to all human beings.?All attempts to curb free speech are ?an attack on human nature,? British-Indian writer Salman Rushdie said Oct. 13 at the start of the Frankfurt Book Fair, the world?s biggest book fair.

A group of masked, machete-wielding men killed an independent atheist blogger in Bangladesh. This is the third blogger slaughtered in a few months, according to local police authorities.

The blogger wrote for “Free Thought” blog. He had received threats by extremists on his texts within the last few months and was clearly targeted, according to a friend of the victim.

A masked gang wielding machetes hacked a secular blogger to death May 12 in northeastern Bangladesh in the third such deadly attack by suspected Islamists since February.