Asif Mohiuddin

Asif Mohiuddin is a popular and sometimes controversial Bangla blogger. Mohiuddin, a self proclaimed atheist, writes against religion and religious politics and is very active online and offline on different national and social issues. 

Mohiuddin, whose blog won the best social activism blog from the Deutsche Welle Best Of Blogs Awards 2012, has suffered backlash from his writing in the past. He was arrested in 2011 during an offline protest and police suggested that he should stop writing.

In January 2013, he was brutally attacked by unknown assailants, presumably for his writings. The police recently arrested four persons who revealed that they attacked Mohiuddin on instruction of a religious extremist.

On March 13, 2013 Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission contacted Somewhereinblog.net, the largest blogging platform in Bangladesh, requesting that the four blogs including Asif's be taken down from the site.

In a report on its website, Somewhereinblog.net officially acknowledged that it had removed the four blogs in line with the government request. More here.

On March 20, 2013, Mohiuddin and seven other bloggers were sued by an individual in the northern Bangladeshi district of Natore [bn] on charges of libeling Islam, God, and the Prophet Muhammad. Another lawsuit against these bloggers in Chittagong was dismissed on March 6, 2013 for lack of evidence.

Asif Mohiuddin was arrested on April 3rd 2013 in the Segunbagicha neighborhood, in the capital of Dhaka, on charges of defaming Islam. "Asif Mohiuddin has been arrested on charges of hurting religious sentiment through his writings on blogs and Facebook," Dhaka police spokesman Masudur Rahman said. On June 27th Mohiuddin was released on bail with trial hearings set for early in the fall of 2013.

More reporting from Reporters Without Borders and Slate

Photo Credit: © TheDailyStar.net