Bangaledeshi Blogger Hacked to Death In Middle of Street For Criticizing...

I'll give you three guesses.

Attacks on bloggers critical of Islam have taken on a disturbing regularity in Bangladesh, with yet another writer hacked to death Tuesday.

Ananta Bijoy Das, 32, was killed Tuesday morning as he left his home on his way to work at a bank, police in the northeastern Bangladeshi city of Sylhet said.

Four masked men attacked him, hacking him to death with cleavers and machetes, said Sylhet Metropolitan Police Commissioner Kamrul Ahsan.

The men then ran away. Because of the time of the morning when the attack happened, there were few witnesses. But police say they are following up on interviewing the few people who saw the incident.

"It's one after another after another," said Imran Sarker, who heads the Blogger and Online Activists Network in Bangladesh. "It's the same scenario again and again. It's very troubling."

Das' death was at least the third this year of someone who was killed for online posts critical of Islam. In each case, the attacks were carried out publicly on city streets.

Meanwhile, T. Becket Adams asks media types: Why do you call Mohammad "the Prophet Mohammad." if you do not call Jesus "Our Lord and Savior"?

The media types, get this, lie about their reasons. They claim they just call him "the Prophet Mohammad to differentiate him from the billion Mohammads in the world.

But that's silly -- context alone would indicate 99% of the time you were referring to the seventh century zealot Mohammad, just as most of the time I mention Jesus, most of you understand I mean the Aramaic carpenter and not the guy playing dominos outside your neighborhood bodega.

In addition, if one wanted to clarify which Mohammad, one could say "the founder of the Islamic faith" or "the claimed prophet of the Islamic faith." That is, one does not need to vouch for the claims that he is a "prophet" out of one's own mouth; one can indicate this is a claim.

Further, one can limit the statement to "the foremost prophet (there are others) of the Islamic faith." That is to say, Mohammad may be other people's prophet, but he ain't mine. In identifying him, why would I claim, flatly, he is The prophet, of all the world, when in fact he's merely a claimed prophet of a desert nomad religion?

So the media lies about what they do and why they do it. I'm sure you're all stunned and a little hurt.

posted by Ace at 06:36 PM

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