Tuesday, 26 April 2016

Two Bangladeshi Gay Rights Activists Hacked to Death

Dhaka: Two people, including the editor of a magazine for the transgender community, have been hacked to death in the capital of Bangladesh.

A third person, a security guard at the apartment building where the killings took place, was seriously wounded in Monday’s attack in Dhaka, in which six attackers murdered Julhas Mannan and Tanay Mojumdar. Mannan was the editor of Rupban, the only LGBT magazine in the country, and he had previously worked at the US embassy in the city.
Maruf Hossain Sorder, a Dhaka Metropolitan Police spokesman, said: “Unidentified attackers entered an apartment at Kalabagan and hacked two people to death.”
The incident came two days after a university professor was killed in similar fashion in an attack in Rajshahi, which was claimed by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, or ISIS) group.
Homosexuality is technically illegal in Bangladesh and remains a highly sensitive issue in society.
Both men were openly gay and believed that if more gay Bangladeshis came out then the country would have to accept them.
They were also behind the annual “Rainbow Rally”, held on Bengali New Year, 14 April, since 2014. This year’s rally was banned by police as part of widespread security measures.
Meanwhile Bangladesh’s best known blogger said he had received a death threat on Sunday.
Last year, at least four atheist bloggers and a secular publisher were hacked to death in a long-running series of killings of secular activists.
The South Asian country has seen a surge in violent attacks over the past few months in which liberal and secular activists, members of minority Muslim sects and other religious groups have been targeted.


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