After last week’s murder of Bangladeshi atheist blogger Nazimuddin Samad (below), one of the worst reactions came from Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal who said Samad’s writings “needed to be scrutinized to see whether he wrote anything objectionable about religion.”

The fact is that it shouldn’t matter what Samad wrote. Criticism of religion never ever deserves a death sentence.

The Dhaka Tribune agrees. In a powerful editorial, they write that the fault lies entirely with the killers, and the government must recognize that.

The point is not what Nazim may or may not have written. The point is that he has been slaughtered in public in cold blood. This is a law and order issue. The government cannot have assassins roaming the streets meting out medieval justice to whoever they think deserves it. It is as simple as that. … The correct and only acceptable government response is unqualified outrage and a genuine and unflagging commitment to hunting down the killers. … To focus on the contents of Nazim’s blog is profoundly unhelpful and misguided, and the sooner the government understands this, the better it will be able to do its job, which is to protect the public from murder, not blame the victim.

Damn right. It’s good to know there are people in Bangladesh who understand this concept. If only they were the ones in the government…



