As Twitchy reported, an LGBT activist and USAID worker was hacked to death along with his companion last week in Bangladesh, leading the U.S. State Department to express its outrage.
Deplore brutal murder of @USAID local staff member and another Bangladeshi advocate in Dhaka. Those responsible must be brought to justice.
— John Kerry (@JohnKerry) April 25, 2016
We are outraged by the barbaric murder of @USAID employee & human rights activist Xulhaz Mannan, beloved by @usembassydhaka.
— Morgan Ortagus (@statedeptspox) April 25, 2016
Mannan was a courageous advocate & editor of an LGBT magazine in #Bangladesh. Our thoughts & prayers are with all of the victims & families.
— Morgan Ortagus (@statedeptspox) April 25, 2016
On behalf of our team, I send our deepest condolences to family, friends & colleagues of @USAID's Xulhaz Mannan: https://t.co/ZqIiolipmJ
— Gayle Smith (@GayleSmith) April 25, 2016
On Saturday, a Hindu tailor who spent three weeks in jail after being charged with hurting religious sentiments by making derogatory comments about the Prophet Mohammed was also hacked to death in Bangladesh by men with machetes.
The Islamic State group claims responsibility for murder of Hindu tailor in central Bangladesh https://t.co/JITbF9qetR
— AFP news agency (@AFP) April 30, 2016
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As the story says, ISIS has claimed responsibility for that attack, as well as other machete attacks that killed a student activist, a Hindu priest, and a university professor, but the government says that’s not possible as there is no ISIS presence in Bangladesh.
… the government denies that international Islamists such as the IS group or Al-Qaeda have a presence in the country, blaming homegrown militants for the killings instead.
“There is no presence of Islamic State in this country. The claim has no base,” Bangladesh home minister Asaduzzaman Khan told The Daily Star newspaper of the IS group claim Saturday.
“At least 30 members of religious minorities, secular activists, foreigners and intellectuals have been murdered in Bangladesh in the past three years,” AFP reports, “including two gay activists and a liberal professor in the past eight days alone.”
Kerry spoke last week at the Baker Institute for Public Policy at Rice University on the topic of religion and foreign policy.
The more we understand religion & the better able we are to engage religious actors, the more effective our diplomacy will be.
— John Kerry (@JohnKerry) April 27, 2016
Religion today remains deeply consequential, affecting the values, actions, and worldview of people in every walk of life on every continent
— Morgan Ortagus (@statedeptspox) April 26, 2016
Kerry made certain to point out the shortcomings of the United States in its treatment of religious minorities, although non-Muslim Americans fall short of “barbaric,” rating only as “despicable.”
Muslims in US are part of social fabric binding our country together. Efforts to smear them collectively for actions of a few are despicable
— Morgan Ortagus (@statedeptspox) April 27, 2016
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