Hundreds of Thousands of Bangladeshis Want Death for Blasphemous Bloggers
We're busy dealing with our own censorship issues here in the United States, but people in Bangladesh are kicking it up a notch (BAM!), by calling for the death penalty for any blogger that insults Islam.
On Saturday, about 200,000 protestors marched in the capital city of Dhaka, and shouted slogans like "God is great - hang the atheist bloggers," according to Al Jazeera.
Two people were killed in the protests when the larger group of fundamentalists from the Hefajat-e-Islam group clashed with the more moderate protesters.
While the size of the protests is unprecedented, the tension is nothing new. Conservative Bangladeshis have been criticizing the media ever since a group of bloggers began a campaign to get members of the country's largest political party tried for war crimes dating back to the 1971 genocide that left one million or more Bangladeshis dead.
While many think an anti-blasphemy law mandating the death penalty has little chance of passing in Bangladesh, that hasn't stopped the government from arresting journalists for saying anything that's perceived as anti-Islam. Sheesh.
