Happy Blasphemy Day, Happy Birthday ‘Mukto Mona’

Happy Blasphemy Day, Happy Birthday ‘Mukto Mona’

Happy Blasphemy Day, Happy Birthday ‘Mukto Mona’

By Avijit Roy|2013-10-22T00:47:13+00:00October 6th, 2013|

I wrote a piece in Bengali on Blasphemy day, 2013.  I could not find time earlier to post this in English blog. Here it is:  

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Today is September 30^th, also known as Blasphemy Rights day.  This day is dedicated to those who are systematically being persecuted, harassed, or killed for their simple expression of Freethought (more precisely, for their ‘blasphemous’ views towards religion).

In medieval ages “blasphemy” was equated with sin, as it was considered an insult to a deity or Holy Scripture. But as time progressed, we apparently became more civilized by promoting the idea that any belief should be open to examination and taboo-free. In most progressive parts of today’s world, particularly in Europe and North America, the old blasphemy laws have been overturned. However, few other parts of the world have retained social ideas that are reminiscent of the mediaeval age. Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Iran and Bangladesh are some prime examples. In Bangladesh, as we already know, several bloggers were recently put behind bars on the sole basis that they were openly atheist (Pls. refer to my write up published in current issue of Free Inquiry Magazine on this topic). In Pakistan (as from the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom report), at least 203 incidents of violence in the name of religion have resulted in some 1,800 casualties and more than 700 deaths in just the last 18 months. These Islamic countries, based on their religious legal code known as Sharia, are deeply anti-woman as well. Recently, a 19-year-old gang rape victim (yes, you read right – rape victim, not the rapist) was sentenced to 200 lashes and to six months in jail for the crime of indecency and speaking to the press in Saudi Arabia (read here). In another incident, Raif Badawi, a blogger in Saudi Arabia has been sentenced to seven years in prison and 600 lashes on charges of blasphemy (here). The nonbelievers in these Islamic countries face the most severe treatment at the hands of both mullahs and the state.

Today, we state clearly that considering apostasy to be a criminal offense in state level in fact is an inexcusable offense. If being religious is someone’s right, then being critical to religion is also one’s right.  There is nothing wrong to be critical to any idea or ideology, as CFI aptly put on its Blasphemy day banner – ‘Ideas do not need rights, People do’!

I wished I would write more on this year’s celebration of blasphemy day, but one unexpected email changed the entire theme of my planned write-up. The email arrived from Patuakhali, one of the remote districts in South-western Bangladesh:

“Every human being wants to be happy; but if we don’t know how to find a way to walk the road of happiness then we will just grow up naturally and die someday without getting the taste of real happiness.

Few years ago, I was desperately looking for a way to find the path of happiness. I guess I have found it at last. Now I know the real happiness is reading “Mukto-Mona [Freethinker] blog” every day.  The real feeling is to know the truth and all I have got from you. I’m really thankful to you for showing the right path. I wish your happiness and bright future always”.

However, it was the last paragraph of the email that really touched my heart. It says:

I have a daughter. As a mark of respect to you and your creation – Mukto-Mona blog, I call her ‘Muktomona’ [freethinker is Bengali] as well. She is two years old now. I will try my best to make her real muktomona I look forward to my daughter growing up and one day asking me, among the millions of names, why did I pick and choose her name ‘muktomona’.  That day I would tell her about you and show her your site and explain -‘That’s why’!

 

This was a wonderful gift for me on ‘Blasphemy day’. I founded this ‘blasphemous site’ Mukto-Mona (www.mukto-mona.com) in the year of 2001, with a singular intention: to debate and discuss on controversial, but utterly important issues.  Only with this principle, I thought, can the construction of a progressive, rational and secular society be possible in mainstream Bangladesh and South Asia. I was proud of MM’s growing popularity in the progressive community over the years, but I never imagined that a person from remote Pauakhali would one day inspired one day so much that he would name his little girl ‘Mukto-Mona’.

What a pleasant surprise! I hope just as her name suggests, the little girl will  one day grow up to be a ‘blasphemous’ freethinker.  I hope she maintains an  inquisitive mind throughout her life, and will be a wonderful person and that she will enhance her life with an ethical, scientific, and philosophical outlook.  I wish her all the best.

Happy blasphemy day 2013. We will celebrate the day as ‘Mukto-Mona Day’  from now on.

Avijit Roy
Founding Moderator, Mukto-Mona
Blasphemy Day, 2013
(September 30, 2013)

 

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Dr. Avijit Roy is a Bangladeshi-American blogger, published author, and prominent defender of the free thought movement. He is an engineer by profession, but well-known for his writings in his self-founded site, Mukto-Mona—an Internet congregation of freethinkers, rationalists, skeptics, atheists, and humanists of mainly Bengali and South Asian descent. As an advocate of atheism, science, and metaphysical naturalism, he has published seven Bangla books, and many of his articles have been published in magazines and journals. His latest book, Obisshahser Dorshon (The Philosophy of Disbelief), has been critically well-received and is a popular Bengali book on science, skepticism, and rationalism. He writes from Atlanta, Georgia.  He can be reached through twitter (@avijit_roy_MM) and Facebook.

Bangladesh Arrests Gay Couples and Threatens Supporters

Bangladesh Arrests Gay Couples and Threatens Supporters

by Steve Williams

                    

                

Two women from the Bangladeshi capital of Dhaka have been arrested for their relationship, a move that demonstrates how the nation’s administration is resisting calls for equality.
Reports say that the couple,  Lucky and Mishti, fell in love while working in a factory in the capital in Dhaka. The local media states that the couple have been living together for at least eight months. Some reports suggest they are “married,” though as Bangladesh criminalizes homosexuality and does not recognize same-sex marriage, this appears to have been a symbolic Hindu wedding and not one with any legal weight.
The couple were recently detained at their rental home after police were “tipped off” as to the couple’s relationship. Reports say that at the time of their arrest, the two were made to submit to “sex tests,” at which time they were deemed to be female — this is because Lucky had apparently presented with a masculine* appearance.
Homosexuality is illegal under the nation’s penal code. Section 377 demands that “Whoever voluntarily has carnal intercourse against the order of nature with any man, woman or animal, shall be punished with imprisonment for life [or hard labor] for a term which may extend to ten years, and shall also be liable to [a] fine.”
However, the section invoked in the above case is a broader offense with the couple being tried under Section 29o, which concerns itself with “offences affecting the public health, safety, convenience, decency and morals” and demands that “Whoever commits a public nuisance in any case not otherwise punishable by this code, shall be punished with a fine which may extend to two hundred taka.”
This follows a similar case in June of this year where a young lesbian couple, also from Dhaka, were detained and are now threatened with life in prison.
As the Huffington Post notes, Bangladesh is among a handful of nations on the list of U.S. allies who at least in terms of statutes criminalize their LGBT population in much more overt ways than, say, Russia, which of course has been in the press for its anti-gay propaganda law.
Moreover, Bangladesh’s administration recently rejected calls from the United Nations to decriminalize homosexuality, saying that to do so would conflict with “socio-cultural values of the country.” Bangladesh is, per its Constitution, a secular state but the encroachment of the predominant Islamic faith has been marked. Perhaps unsurprisingly then, attitudes to homosexuality in Bangladesh are predominantly negative.
A recent example of this comes in the form of a vocal protest from Bangladeshi Islamic groups against Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus over comments he made in 2012 against Uganda’s worsening gay rights situation.
Hundreds of Imams in Bangladesh are planning a rally against the anti-poverty campaigner, while organizer Maolana Moniruzzaman Rabbani told the AFP on Monday that “Yunus must apologize for supporting homosexuality or he must be prosecuted for standing against the Quran and Islam.”
Yunus, also hounded by a government tax probe that is thought to be connected not to Yunus’ business affairs but his political affiliations with the government’s opposition, is no longer living in Bangladesh and his current fixed residence is unknown.
What is perhaps most troubling about Bangladesh’s anti-LGBT stance is that its administration is actively enforcing criminal penalties against same-sex couples, resisting calls to change that and actively pursuing those who show LGBT rights advocacy. This creates a dangerous climate of oppression and intolerance to free speech that should worry not just the LGBT population, but all citizens.