IN TERMS of international news stories per head of population, Bangladesh, a Muslim-majority country of more than 160m, is among the world’s most underreported places. But recently it has been attracting headlines for ugly reasons. First came the religiously motivated murders—of more than two dozen secular bloggers, liberals and others since 2013, typically hacked to death with machetes; then, on May 11th, the execution of Motiur Rahman Nizami, leader of the country’s largest Islamist party, for atrocities committed during the war for independence from Pakistan in 1971. Less reported is Bangladesh’s remorseless descent into authoritarian rule. All three phenomena are symptoms of the same disease: a political culture that cannot brook dissent and which views power as a means to crush it.
The hanging of Mr Nizami is a reminder that Bangladesh was born with the disease. In the war of secession, probably hundreds of thousands died in the former East Pakistan, the Bengali half of a geographically divided country. The Bangladeshi government estimates that 3m died and accuses Pakistan of genocide, systematically killing intellectuals and professionals to...Continue reading
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