In what is becoming a recurring theme now in Bangladesh these days, the capital Dhaka experienced a bit rude awakening today, as news of yet another blasphemy lawsuit slowly filtered through this morning.
The blasphemy lawsuit in question, was failed against 28 people (yes that is more than 2 dozen) of various professions and backgrounds. This past 12th of February saw one Mr Habibur Rahman, the plaintiff here, file a blasphemy lawsuit with the Dhaka Judicial Magistrate Court-1, Amoli court, accusing the creators and contributors of a magazine called ‘Atheist in Bangladesh’ of ‘ writing, publishing crude and blasphemous content against Islam’. The lawsuit has been filed in accordance with the much debated Bangladesh Penal code 295.
According to reports the plaintiff Mr Habibur Rahman an active member of the infamous religious political group Hefazat-E-Islami Bangladesh. He alleges that the above named magazine had been indulging itself in berating, insulting and lewdly criticising religion, especially Islam, for quite some time now. As a result Mr Habibur Rahman ‘felt compelled’ to take action against these ‘enemies of Islam’ and ‘spawns of atheists’ as he referred to them.
Our court correspondent did manage to get a hold of him and when questioned with regards to the lawsuit Mr Rahman replied, “These writers make crude comments, belittle Islam as they see fit and the government or Foreign Ministry does nothing about it. There is no place for the spawns of atheists in this pure land of Allah.” Mr Habibur Rahman also demanded that the government establish ‘Shariyah Rule’ in Bangladesh otherwise they will not be able to ‘last long’ in this country.
Our court correspondent did try and get in touch with the Foreign Ministry but no one was available for a comment.
It is worth mentioning that the primary defendant in this lawsuit is one Mr Yeaz Kawsar, a blogger and online activist. It was later discovered that Mr Kawsar is actually facing several previous charges where he has allegedly belittled and had been blasphemous towards religion. Moreover he also happens to be one of the bloggers, writers, free thinking spirits named in the kill-list published a few years ago by the notorious (and still at large) extremist group, Ansarullah Bangla Team.
Along with Mr Kawsar the other notable names accused in this lawsuit are – Mr Arifur Rahman who is the editor of this magazine, ‘Secular publishers’ (who published it), Pinaki Deb Apu, Apurbo Kumar Rai, Hosni Mubarak, Shahadat Hossain, Syed Ishtiak Hossain, Md. Tofayel Hossain, Adnan Sakib, Roosevelt Haldar, Abu Hanif, Syed Mohammad Shojib Abed, Md Mehedi Hossain, Syed Sunvy Anick Hossain, Enayetul Huda, Naymul Islam, Md Abdullah Al Hasan, Kazi Md Saiful Haque, Ashef Abrar Titu, Hussain Mohammad Parvez, Riana Trina, Miltan Kumar Dey, Tamzid Hossain, Abu Taher Md Mustafa, Siddikur Rahman, Sharmin Khan, Kazi Mohammad Abu Bokkor Siddiki.
Meanwhile several members of Hefazat-E-Islami, seemingly encouraged by the initiative shown by their peer Mr Habibur Rahman, overwhelmed the court premises that day before heatedly protesting against ‘Atheist in Bangladesh’ and its contributors. According to reports they later formed into a protest rally and marched towards Gulistan, the capital’s chief commercial town. During that time there are scattered reports of violence and destruction of property carried out by the Hefazat protestors.