The Savar Massacre
The latest number of casualty from the Savar Massacre of 2013 due to the collapse of a 9-story building known as Rana Plaza (owned by Sohel Rana, a stalwart of the local branch of the Jubo League, an affiliate of Awami League which heads the current ruling coalition) exceeds 700 as of this writing! It is likely to go up, as many still remain unaccounted, their relatives desperately hoping for miracles. List of injured had passed 1,000 mark soon after the collapse; not sure any one is keeping tabs on that any longer. The rising toll keeps pushing our sense towards numbness and our patience to breaking the point.
In Which Direction Will the State Go? The state is at loggerhead with Fundamentalism
Moderator's Note: Subrata Adhikari Shuvo, an eminent mukto-mona blogger, was arrested on April 1st on charges of Blasphemy. He is one among the free-spirited online writers who are being punished for virally spreading their reason-based opinions. Not once did Shuvo violate any stated Bangladeshi law, yet his actions have been declared as a crime in the eye of the government. What's more twisted is that Bangladesh does not even have an official "blasphemy" law, like Pakistan does. Human rights organizations all over the world are berating Bangladesh for restricting the bloggers' right to freedom of speech (Please refer to the article published in Skeptic under the title, 'The Struggle of Bangladeshi Bloggers') .
BLASPHEMY LAW IN BANGLADESH
Blasphemy in Islam has no reference in Qur'an and Hadith. This is a later creation of Jurists (Ulema). The Ulema are a power hungry lot. They exert authority on all aspects of Muslims' lives. Combination of politicians with Ulema in the issue of blasphemy law is deadly. Why a religion needs stringent blasphemy law to protect it and its Prophet? It surely does not. But, in the name of protecting Islam and Prophet, the Ulema-politician combination is actually protecting their authoritative and political position.