Murdered blogger Niloy Neel, Image by Reza Sumon. Copyright Demotix
APC and Bytes for All, Pakistan strongly condemn the murder of Bangladeshi blogger Niloy Neel. We grieve over this senseless act of violence together with Niloy’s family and friends, and extend unconditional solidarity and our deepest condolences to the victims of crimes of intolerance towards free expression.
This tragic loss of life is the latest in a string of attacks on Bangladeshi bloggers and reporters. In March of 2013, the government of Bangladesh formed a committee to track bloggers that it deems guilty of critical speech. The committee prepared a list of 84 bloggers with an aim to take action against them for their allegedly “anti Islam” writings, essentially handing extremists a “kill list”. The trend of attacks on bloggers has reached an alarming rate in 2015, with five attacks this year, four of them fatal.
Read the statement –