Shahbagh is a major neighbourhood and a police precinct or thana in Dhaka, the capital and largest city of Bangladesh. It is also a major public transport hub. It is a junction between two contrasting sections of the city—Old Dhaka and New Dhaka—which lie, respectively, to its south and north. Developed in the 17th century during Mughal rule in Bengal, when Old Dhaka was the provincial capital and a centre of the flourishing muslin industry, it came to neglect and decay in early 19th century. In the mid-19th century, the Shahbagh area was developed as New Dhaka became a provincial centre of the British Raj, ending a century of decline brought on by the passing of Mughal rule.
The Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC) is an independent commission founded under the Bangladesh Telecommunication Act, 2001. The BTRC is responsible for regulating all matters related to telecommunications of Bangladesh. The chairman of the commission has the status of a judge of the Bangladesh High Court. Md. Emdad-Ul-Bari is the chairman of the commission.
2012 Fatehpur Violence refers to the attack on the minority Hindu community in the Fatehpur village under Kaliganj upazila in Satkhira District in south-western Bangladesh on the 31 March 2012.
On 5 February 2013, protests ignited in Shahbagh, Bangladesh, fueled by the call for the execution of the convicted war criminal Abdul Quader Mollah. Previously sentenced to life imprisonment, Mollah was convicted on five of six counts of war crimes by the International Crimes Tribunal of Bangladesh. Mollah supported the West Pakistan during the 1971 Bangladesh Liberation War and played a crucial role in the murder of numerous Bengali nationalists and intellectuals. The demonstrations also sought the government's ban on the radical right-wing and conservative-Islamist group, Jamaat-e-Islami from participating in politics, including elections, and a boycott of institutions supporting or affiliated with the group.
2013 Bangladesh violence refers to the political instability, increase in crime and widespread attacks of minorities and opposition activists.
2013 (MMXIII) was a common year starting on Tuesday of the Gregorian calendar, the 2013th year of the Common Era (CE) and Anno Domini (AD) designations, the 13th year of the 3rd millennium and the 21st century, and the 4th year of the 2010s decade.
Ahmed Rajib Haider was a Bangladeshi atheist blogger. He used to blog in the blogging communities namely somewhereinblog.net, amarblog.com and nagorikblog.com and used the pseudonym Thaba Baba.
The Ansarullah Bangla Team (ABT), also known as Ansar-al Islam Bangladesh or Ansar Bangla is a pan-Islamist militant organization in Bangladesh, implicated in many terrorist activities including attacks and murders of atheist bloggers from 2013 to 2015. The organisation was outlawed by the Ministry of Home Affairs on 25 May 2015, days after the Ashulia bank robbery. The group has also been linked by the Detective Branch of Bangladesh Police to Islami Chhatra Shibir, the student wing of the Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami party.
Hefazat-e-Islam Bangladesh is a far-right conservative-islamic advocacy group consisted mostly of hard-line religious teachers and students. The group is mainly based on qawmi madrasas in Bangladesh. In 2013, they submitted a 13-point charter to the Government of Bangladesh, which included the demand for the enactment of a blasphemy law. Under recent years, Hefazat has been formed into more of a moderate and anti terrorism ideology due to success of Awami League in ensuring jobs and mobilizing qawmi madrasa.
The Worldwide Protests for Free Expression in Bangladesh were a series of rallies outside Bangladeshi embassies and consulates to demand the release of four Bangladeshi bloggers who had been arrested on charges of blasphemy. The protests took place on 25 April – 2 May 2013 and were organised by the Center for Inquiry (CFI), American Atheists, and the International Humanist and Ethical Union. Demonstrations were held in Dhaka, New York City, Washington, D.C., London, Ottawa and other cities around the world. Secularists sought to express their solidarity with those jailed for speaking their minds about religion. Protesters drew attention to those who were being persecuted for exercising free speech, seeking to convince the international community to exert influence to have the bloggers set free by the Bangladeshi government.
The movement demanding trial of war criminals is a protest movement in Bangladesh, from 1972 to present demanding trial of the perpetrators of 1971 Bangladesh genocide during the Bangladesh Liberation War from Pakistan.
On 5 January 2014, the 10th general elections were held in Bangladesh. The opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party and its ally Jamaat-e-Islami had already boycotted the elections. The buildup to the elections were marred by successive strikes and violence by the opposition parties. Victims claimed after the polls, workers and supporters of the opposition parties began attacking the minority Bengali Hindus. Accusing of looting, vandalising and setting the Hindu houses on fire in several districts across the country. Seven persons belonging to the Jamaat-e-Islami and the Bangladesh Nationalist Party were arrested in connection with the attacks. The National Human Rights Commission held the government responsible for the attacks on Hindus after the election. In India, the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party condemned the attacks on minorities.
Irreligion in Bangladesh is rare and uncommon publicly. A Gallup survey conducted between 2014 and 2015 found that approximately less than 1% identified as convinced atheists in the poll. Bangladesh has 165.2 million people as of the 2022 census.
Avijit Roy was a Bangladeshi-American engineer, online activist, writer, and blogger known for creating and administrating the Mukto-Mona, an Internet blogging community for Bangladeshi freethinkers, rationalists, skeptics, atheists, and humanists. Roy was an advocate of free expression in Bangladesh and coordinated international protests against government censorship and imprisonment of atheist bloggers. He was killed by machete-wielding assailants in Dhaka, Bangladesh, on 26 February 2015; the Islamic militant organization Ansarullah Bangla Team claimed responsibility for the attack.
Asif Mohiuddin is a Bangladeshi atheist and secular activist, religious critic and feminist. In 2012, he won The Bobs-Best of Online Activism award from Deutsche Welle, who stated that "Asif's blog was one of the most read web pages in Bangladesh and is known for its strong criticism of Islamic fundamentalism in Bangladesh's "anti-people politics", his blog was later blocked and banned in Bangladesh by its government. On 15 January 2013, he survived an assassination attempt by Islamic extremists. A few months later, he was imprisoned twice by the Bangladesh Government for posting "offensive comments about Islam and Mohammad". Due to sustained international pressure, Mohiuddin was released, after which he fled from his country to Germany in 2014. In 2015, he received the Anna Politkovskaya Prize for Journalism, awarded by Italian magazine Internazionale.
Attacks by Islamist extremists in Bangladesh took place during a period of turbulence in Bangladesh between 2013 and 2016 when a number of secularist and atheist writers, bloggers, and publishers in Bangladesh; foreigners; homosexuals; and religious minorities such as Hindus, Buddhists, Christians and Ahmadis who were seen as having offended Islam and Muhammad were attacked in retaliation, with many killed by Muslim extremists. By 2 July 2016, a total of 48 people, including 20 foreign nationals, had been 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.
Mukto-Mona is a Bengali language blog for secularists, atheists, and freethinkers. It was founded by Avijit Roy who was subsequently killed by militants in Dhaka, Bangladesh. The attackers are believed to be members of Ansarullah Bangla Team.
Asaduzzaman Noor, better known as Asad Noor, is an exiled Bangladeshi blogger and human rights activist. Noor is an advocate for freedom of expression and LGBT rights, who has criticised religious fundamentalism in Bangladesh. He has been prosecuted multiple times by Bangladeshi authorities for alleged blasphemy and hurting religious sentiments. He has been living in exile since 2019.He faces significant life-threatening risks from Islamic fundamentalists due to his outspoken criticism and repeated exposure of their activities through his activism.
Syed Faizul Karim is a Bangladeshi Islamic scholar and politician. He is known as Shaikh-e-Charmonai to his supporters. He is serving as Senior Vice President of Islami Andolan Bangladesh. He is also the Vice President of Bangladesh Mujahid Committee and Bangladesh Quran Education Board and Central Member of Befaqul Madarisil Arabia Bangladesh. During his student life, he served as the central president of the Islami Chhatra Andolan Bangladesh.
On February 19, 2013, Shah Ahmad Shafi, leader of Hefazat-e-Islam Bangladesh, published an open letter to the public and the government on the front page of Amar Desh. In the letter, he condemned the ongoing Shahbag protests, claiming they were tied to anti-Islamic activities. He accused the Ahmadiyya community and an anti-Islamic online group of involvement, naming individuals such as Shahriar Kabir, Muntassir Mamoon, Zafar Iqbal, Gholam Rabbani, and Ajoy Roy as responsible. Shafi called on the government to take action against these activities and urged the public to speak out against them. This letter marked Hefazat-e-Islam's entry into the political landscape, initiating the Islamist response to the Shahbag protests and leading to the development of its 13-point demand.
