Story highlights Nazimuddin Samad is the sixth secularist writer or publisher to be killed in Dhaka in past 14 months

Bangladeshi government's response has been shameful, authors say

Paul Fidalgo is communications director for the Center for Inquiry. Michael De Dora is director of the center's office of public policy, the organization's representative to the United Nations and the president of the United Nations NGO Committee on Freedom of Religion or Belief. The opinions expressed in this commentary are theirs.

(CNN) An innocent young man is brutally hacked to death in the street by marauding thugs with machetes, and the government's response is to effectively blame the victim. This is the outrageous and absurd situation in the supposed democratic state of Bangladesh, where a bloody campaign of terror is being waged against secularists and atheists who have criticized radical Islam. But rather than act to protect the rights and safety of its people, Bangladesh's leaders are coddling the killers and chastising the dead.

Paul Fidalgo

One would expect in a civilized world to see the government stand up for the rights of its people and unify the country against this kind of violence based on religion. But that's not what has happened. Rather than condemn the killers, Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan scolded the victims, telling CNN : "The bloggers, they should control their writing. Our country is a secular state. ... I want to say that people should be careful not to hurt anyone by writing anything -- hurt any religion, any people's beliefs, any religious leaders."

Michael DeDora

This is only the latest shameful example of the Bangladesh government doing exactly what the terrorists want: to make people terrified that if they have something critical to say about religion, they could pay for it with their lives.

Sadly, secularists and other dissidents have been paying this price in Bangladesh since at least 1999 . However, this current storm of violence began in February of last year , when Bangladeshi-American writer and activist Avijit Roy was hacked to death at a book fair in Dhaka, while his wife, Rafida Bonya Ahmed, was gravely injured and barely escaped with her own life. Several similar attacks followed, with four more writers and publishers killed and others injured. Unfortunately, Hindu, Christian, and Shia minorities have also been subjected to deadly attacks.

Read More