{"id":2378,"date":"2013-05-06T11:28:10","date_gmt":"2013-05-06T11:28:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/tippling\/?p=2378"},"modified":"2013-05-08T06:03:27","modified_gmt":"2013-05-08T06:03:27","slug":"protesters-demand-blasphemy-law-in-bangladesh","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/tippling\/2013\/05\/06\/protesters-demand-blasphemy-law-in-bangladesh\/","title":{"rendered":"Protesters demand blasphemy law in Bangladesh"},"content":{"rendered":"

More misery for atheists and secularists in Bangladesh (see this very moving interview<\/a> I shared the other day). The country is going seriously backwards.<\/p>\n

As AlJazeera reports<\/a>:<\/p>\n

One dead and dozens injured in pitched battles on Dhaka streets between supporters of Hifazat-e-Islam and police.<\/h4>\n

\"\"
Protesters in Bangladesh clashed with police over demands for a new blasphemy law [Al Jazeera]<\/figcaption><\/figure>Tens of thousands of protesters demanding a new blasphemy law have blocked major highways to cut off the Bangladeshi capital Dhaka from the rest of the country, police said.<\/p>\n

Activists of Hifazat-e-Islam marched down at least six highways, halting traffic on Sunday between Dhaka and other cities and towns.<\/p>\n

The areas around Bangladesh’s largest mosque in central Dhaka turned into a battleground after police clashed with thousands of stone-throwing demonstrators, police said.<\/p>\n

“At least one person was shot dead and 35 people were injured,” police sub-inspector Rokon, who goes by one name, told AFP news agency.<\/p>\n

Another senior police officer, Sheikh Nazmul Alam, said police fired rubber bullets to disperse unruly protesters. Online news-site bdnews24.com said at least 10 small bombs had exploded near the area.<\/p>\n

Zain al-Mahmood, editor of\u00a0The Dhaka Tribune<\/em>, told Al Jazeera that the protests are happening because “Hifazat-e-Islam think the Islamic way of life and culture of the country is under attack.”<\/p>\n

He went on to say that while “this had been announced as a one-day protest, some leaders had warned that if there was violence they would be prepared to do a sit-in. This is also a concern for the government.”<\/p>\n

The protest was staged as the country was recovering from its worst industrial disaster, with some 600 people killed when a factory building collapsed on April 24.<\/p>\n

Death penalty demanded<\/strong><\/p>\n

Hifazat, a newly created radical religious group, is demanding the death penalty for all those who defame Islam.<\/p>\n

It said it held the mass protest to push a 13-point list of demands which also include a ban on men and women mixing freely together and the restoration of pledges to Allah in the constitution.<\/p>\n

Tens of thousands of demonstrators marched to Motijheel, Dhaka’s main commercial district, where leaders threatened to launch a campaign to oust the government unless their demands are met.<\/p>\n

No police estimate was available for the total number of protesters. But a senior officer who declined to be named told AFP that between 150,000 and 200,000 attended the rally at Motijheel.<\/p>\n

The rally was the latest in a series of mass actions by Hifazat.<\/p>\n

Last month activists organised a general strike as well as a gathering of hundreds of thousands of its activists, in what experts said was the country’s largest political gathering in decades.<\/p>\n

Critics have branded Hifazat’s demands as a charter for turning Bangladesh into a country like Taliban-ruled Afghanistan.<\/p>\n

Women workers including female garment labourers have vented their anger at the group’s call to segregate the sexes.<\/p>\n

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, who has been leading a secular government in the Muslim-majority country since 2009, has rejected the demand for a blasphemy law.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

More misery for atheists and secularists in Bangladesh (see this very moving interview I shared the other day). The country is going seriously backwards.<\/p>\n

As AlJazeera reports:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[256,251],"tags":[639,619,1753,638],"class_list":["post-2378","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-atheism-2","category-islam","tag-aljazeera","tag-bangladesh","tag-islam","tag-secularism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/tippling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2378","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/tippling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/tippling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/tippling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/tippling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2378"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/tippling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2378\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/tippling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2378"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/tippling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2378"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/tippling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2378"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}