Avijit Roy - The Gadfly voice of reason
Avijit Roy(1972-2015) was a voice of reason in an age when people boast of their ignorance and lies are claimed as alternatives to universal truths. A software engineer by profession and a writer by passion Avijit Roy was a leading Bangladeshi-American human rights activist, author and a pioneer in Bengali free-thought movement.
No country for Sabina
11 year old child domestic worker Sabina Akhter was found in the street of Dhaka with multiple injuries caused by torture. The images of her battered and bruised face horrified the entire nation.
Keynote at 2017 Secular Conference 2017 - Freedom of Expression and Conscience
The notion of freedom changes with time and space. At this moment, our species is standing at a crossroad of history, where individual liberty, freedom of expression, conscience, and belief have become a very important part of our existence. We are demanding equal rights regardless of sex, gender, class, race - you name it. We, the secular community, are demanding freedom for all, which is the greatest demand of our time.
Langadu- a national shame for Bangladesh
The gruesome images of the indigenous people of Langadu upazila, Rangamati fleeing home, carrying whatever belongings they could save, shows that if you happen to be a member of the indigenous community, calling Bangladesh home, your life has not changed even in the slightest since the dark days of our military dictatorship.
Bangladesh Must Stop its Descent into ISIS Hell!
Early steps towards a theocracy: Changes in the Constitution of Bangladesh
Malala in Lalaland
First posted: Tuesday, April 18, 2017 05:31 PM EDT | Updated: Tuesday, April 18, 2017 05:36 PM EDT
Mashal Khan's Murderers Must be Brought to Justice and Anti-Blasphemy Laws Must be Abolished
Mukto-Mona is saddened to learn that Mashal Khan, a twenty-three years old student was shot and brutally beaten to death by a mob that included fellow students on April 13, 2017. He was accused of blasphemy. Mashal, who called himself "The Humanist" on Facebook, was a student at Abdul Wali Khan University in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province in Pakistan.
An Occidental Islam - Between Culturalist and Reformist Expediencies
In the west, the discourse on Islam has been greatly shaped by contentious debates on the role of the state. The germination of radical ideas among the European-Muslim millennials and recent terrorist attacks across Europe has bolstered the edifice of the populist right-wing ideas, and there is a rising trend in the popularity of the far-right political parties who promulgate such ideas. The current scenario in the Western world is pretty much an evocative picture of the pre-Second World War political turmoil. The shadow of a disintegrated European Union looms on the horizon. Across the Atlantic, Donald Trump rose to power hurling disparaging remarks towards Muslims while promising a Muslim ban and extreme vetting of the Muslim immigrants. In these altercations, the culturalists and the reformists, the two different schools of thought gained prominence offering very different connotations of the Islamic pedigrees and culture in their attempt to dispense with the problem of "Radical Islam."