By Emran Hossain/The Huffington Post
WASHINGTON — The Bangladeshi government is cracking down on bloggers critical of its pro-Islamist stance, arresting four of these writers in the capital of Dhaka this week.
Asif Mohiuddin, 30, is one of those bloggers. Mohiuddin has only recently recovered from injuries he incurred during an attack on him by a militant Islamist group in January. Detectives took him from his home on Wednesday night, just two days after police arrested three other bloggers for allegedly hurting the religious beliefs of the people.
Subrata Adhikary Shuvo, 24, Russell Parvez, 36, and Mashiur Rahman Biplob, 42, were picked up on Monday night. Like other bloggers around the world, they have criticized both politicians and the press, in this case for being biased toward Islamist views and ideologies in a country that is constitutionally supposed to be secular. All three wrote regularly for Amar Blog, a popular site that was also shut down after the arrests.
Even before bringing any official charges against the three, police marched them before reporters at a press conference on Tuesday. Detectives also seized their laptops and hard disks, which they displayed at the press conference as if the computers were arms recovered from a criminal den.
For now, the three bloggers have been remanded for police questioning for a week. The fate of Mohiuddin is still being determined.
