A gay rights activist and his friend were killed Monday night in Bangladesh’s capital, Dhaka, by a group of assailants reportedly armed with machetes and guns.
Their deaths are the latest in “a series of attacks on progressive voices that has deepened anxiety about growing fundamentalism in the tiny Muslim country, which borders India,” NPR’s Julie McCarthy tells our Newscast unit.
Xulhaz Mannan and a man said to be a close friend were slain by a half-dozen men posing as couriers when they forced their way inside Mannan’s apartment, Julie reports.
Mannan worked for the U.S. Agency for International Development and was the editor of Roopbaan, the country’s only LGBT magazine, and had helped organize a rally for LGBT youths called The Rainbow Rally on April 14, the Bengali New Year. Another friend of Mannan’s, Sara Hossain, told The New York Times that the activist had received death threats from people who opposed the rally.
An al-Qaida-linked group said it was responsible for the two killings. The Associated Press reports that “the claim by Ansar-al-islam — which said it targeted the two men on Monday night because they were ‘pioneers of practicing and promoting homosexuality’ — raised doubts about Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s repeated assurances that authorities have the security situation under control.”