Attacks by Fundamentalist in Bangladesh refers to a period of turbulence in Bangladesh between 2013 and 2016 where attacks on a number of secularist and atheist writers, bloggers, and publishers in Bangladesh; foreigners; homosexuals; and religious minorities such as Hindus, Buddhists, Christians and Ahmadis were seen as having attacked Islam and the Prophet Muhammad with many killed by Muslim extremists in retaliation. By 2 July 2016 a total of 48 people, including 20 foreign nationals, were killed in such attacks. These attacks were largely blamed on extremist groups such as Ansarullah Bangla Team and Islamic State of Iraq and Syria. The Bangladeshi government was criticized for its response to the attacks, which included charging and jailing some of the secularist bloggers for allegedly defaming some religious groups; or hurting the religious sentiments of different religious groups; or urging the bloggers to flee overseas. This strategy was seen by some as pandering to hard line elements within Bangladesh's Muslim majority population. About 89% of the population in Bangladesh is Sunni Muslim. The government's eventual crackdown in June 2016 was also criticized for its heavy-handedness, as more than 11,000 people were arrested in a little more than a week (as of 18 June 2016).
Background
In 2010 the government of Bangladesh, headed by the secularist Awami League, established a war crimes tribunal to investigate war crimes perpetrated during Bangladesh's bloody 1971 War of Independence from Pakistan. In February 2013 Abdul Quader Molla, a leader of the Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami party (a Islamist party within the opposition coalition), was sentenced to life imprisonment by the tribunal. The perceived mildness of the sentence was condemned by Bangladesh's secularist bloggers and writers, who helped organize the 2013 Shahbag protests in response, calling for the death penalty for Molla. The protestors quickly expanded their demands to include outlawing the Jamaat-e-Islami party itself for its role in the 1971 war.
Shortly after the first Shahbag protests, counter-demonstrations, which quickly degenerated into violence, were organized by Islamist groups. Islamist leaders denounced the war crimes tribunal as political and called for an end to the prosecution of Jamaat-e-Islami leaders; they demanded instead the death penalty for secularist bloggers, denouncing them as "atheists" and accusing them of blasphemy. A spokesman for the secularist bloggers, Imran Sarker, stated that the hostility directed toward them by Islamists is due primarily to the bloggers' growing political influence in Bangladesh, which represents a major obstacle to the Islamist goal of a religious state.
Though there were occasional attacks on secularists prior to the 2013 Shahbag protests, the frequency of attacks has increased since. Reporters Without Borders noted that in 2014 a group calling itself "Defenders of Islam" published a "hit list" of 84 Bangladeshis, mostly secularists, of whom nine have already reportedly been killed and others attacked. Responsibility for many of the attacks has been claimed by Ansarullah Bangla Team, a group that, according to police, has links with both the youth wing of Jamaat-e-Islami and al-Qaeda. The group has since been banned by the government. Other attacks appear to have been perpetrated by more obscure groups. Among some extremists, this violence is motivated by inceldom.
Government and international response
While police have arrested a number of suspects in the killings, and some bloggers have received police protection, the Bangladesh government has also responded by arresting and jailing a number of secularist bloggers for "defaming Islam" and by shutting down several websites. According to Sarker, "[T]he government has taken this easy route to appease a handful of mullahs whose support they need to win the upcoming election."
A number of non-governmental organisations (NGOs), including Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, Reporters without Borders, PEN International, PEN Canada and the Committee to Protect Journalists have criticized the government for failing to protect its citizens and for not condemning the attacks, and have condemned the imprisonment of bloggers as an attack on free speech, which they say is contributing to a climate of fear for Bangladeshi journalists.