Secularist Blogger Hacked To Death By Islamists In Bangladesh

In Dhaka, Bangladesh on Thursday night, the Bangladeshi-American blogger Avijit Roy was hacked to death by machetes and meat cleavers in an attack by an Islamist group that objects to his secularist postings on science, religion and LGBT issues on his blog Mukto-Mona (Free-mind).  Roy's wife, Rafida Ahmed, was also attacked and lost a finger.  The Guardian reports that Roy, a Hindu and a strong voice against religious fanaticism, had been receiving threats for some time and that a Facebook posting warned that he would be killed once he arrived in Bangladesh from the United States. After the attack, a group identifying itself as Ansar Bangla 7 Tweeted: "Anti-Islamic blogger US-Bengali citizen Avijit Roy is assassinated in capital #Dhaka due to his crime against #Islam." Several hundred people joined a rally yesterday near the site of the attack carrying banners reading: "We want justice" and "Down with fundamentalism."