Hundreds of Thousands of Bangladeshis Demonstrate For Blasphemy Law

In Bangladesh today, hundreds of thousands of protesters supporting the Islamist group Hefazat-e-Islam descended on the capital Dhaka in support of 13 demands by the group, including a call for enactment of a blasphemy law with a death penalty aimed at those the protesters call "atheist bloggers." As reported by Al Jazeera the protests are a reaction to trials and sentences imposed on leaders of the Jamaat-e-Islami party for crimes committed during the country's bloody 1971 Liberation War. Secularists staged a rival protest. The bloggers who are the targets of the call for a blasphemy law have pressed for imposition of the death sentence on those found guilty of war crimes during the country's war of liberation.