THE KILLERS came as couriers, a suspicious-looking group of five or six. The parcel they carried, to a flat in Dhaka on April 25th, was filled with machetes. Once inside they hacked to death Xulhaz Mannan, a gay-rights activist, and a friend. Across the capital, Bangladesh’s prime minister, Sheikh Hasina, blamed the murders on the opposition alliance. A more plausible explanation emerged a few hours later when a local group affiliated with al-Qaeda claimed responsibility.
Mr Mannan was the editor of Roopbaan, the country’s first magazine for gay and transgender readers, and worked for America’s aid agency. He had been receiving death threats since trying to organise a “Rainbow Rally” earlier in the month for gay and transgender youth (the police cancelled it, saying it would offend religious sentiment). The latest deaths brought to four the number of liberals killed in similar attacks this month. Just two days earlier a professor of English at Rajshahi University in the north-west had been cut down, also in broad daylight. A group professing allegiance to Islamic State (IS) had claimed that killing. Last year there were at least five such...Continue reading
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