SHAFAQNA

SHAFAQNA (Shia International News Association) – Protests in Bangladesh have spread to a second city with hundreds of people throwing stones and setting fire to vehicles, as authorities made arrests in connection with the collapse of factory building that killed more than 300 workers.

Police said on Saturday they had arrested two owners of the garment businesses and two engineers involved in approving the design of the shoddily constructed eight-story building which collapsed on Wednesday.

Shamsul Haque Tuku, deputy home minister, said police had arrested Bazlus Samad, managing director of New Wave Apparels Ltd, and Mahmudur Rahman Tapash, the company chairman.

The two owners and one of the engineers appeared in court on Saturday where the faced charges connected with the collapse.

The deputy home minister also told reporters that police had detained the wife of Mohammed Sohel Rana, the owner of the collapsed Rana Plaza building, for questioning. The top three floors of the eight-story building were illegally constructed.

"Everyone involved - including the designer, engineer, and builders - will be arrested for putting up this defective

building," Haque said.

Dhaka police superintendent Habibur Rahman said Rana was a local leader of ruling Awami League's youth front.

Without permits

Officials said Rana Plaza, on the outskirts of the capital, Dhaka, had been built without the correct permits, and the workers were allowed in on Wednesday despite warnings the previous day that it was structurally unsafe.

At least 23 people were pulled out alive from under the tangled mess of concrete, bricks and steel on Saturday, more than 72 hours after the building came down that has claimed the lives of at least 340 people.

"We must salute the common people who dared to enter the wreckage to rescue them, as even our professionals didn't dare to take the risk," Mizanur Rahman, deputy director of the fire service, told Reuters news agency.

As many as 900 people could still be missing, police said.

Police in riot gear formed a cordon around the site to keep away hundreds of protesters who have vented their anger at the situation since Wednesday.

Sheikh Hasina Wajed, the prime minister, pledged there would be justice in the worst tragedy to hit Bangladesh's poorly regulated garment industry that supplies clothes to top Western brand names.

Anger has grown and protests have spread across Bangladesh even as protesters clashed with the police in Savar, the site of the accident, for the second day.

Worker safety

Police said on Saturday that clashes had erupted in other parts of Dhaka and in the southeastern city of Chittagong where hundreds of garment workers took to the streets, blocked roads and vandalised vehicles.

Authorities shut garment factories in Dhaka for fear of violence, which has persisted over demands that authorities take stern action against the guilty.

Wednesday's collapse was the second major industrial incident in five months in Bangladesh, the second-largest exporter of garments in the world.

In November last year, a fire at the Tazreen Fashion factory nearby the latest disaster killed 112 people.

Such incidents have raised serious questions about worker safety and low wages, and could taint the reputation of the poor South Asian country, which relies on garments for 80 percent of its exports.

There is anger over the working conditions of Bangladesh's 3.6 million garment workers - most of whom are women - who toil for $38 a month.

Human Rights Watch said the tragedy showed there was an "urgent need to improve Bangladesh’s protections for worker health and safety".-www.shafaqna.com/English

SHAFAQNA - Bangladeshi police say they have made three arrests after a garment factory outside Dhaka collapsed, killing more than 300 people.

The building's owners and an engineer who was responsible for maintenance were arrested on Saturday after the death toll rose to 324.

"We've arrested Bazlus Samad, the chairman of New Wave Buttons and New Wave Style factories, and Mahmudur Rahaman Tapash, a managing director of one of these plants, after midnight," Shyamal Mukherjee, deputy chief of Dhaka police, told AFP news agency.

One manager for the New Wave Styles company, one of the five manufacturers in the building, said the owner had consulted an engineer but then ignored his warnings.

"Those who're involved, especially the owner who forced the workers to work there, will be punished," Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina told lawmakers. 

"Wherever he is, he will be found and brought to justice."

The police said they plan to arrest at least ten more, after the Hasina's statement.

Widespread anger has been fuelled by revelations that factory bosses forced 3,000 workers to continue working on Wednesday despite police orders to evacuate the building because of cracks found in the structure the day before.

Thousands of garment factory workers in Bangladesh protested on Friday.

Police fired tear gas and rubber bullets on Friday as protesters attacked factories and smashed vehicles, forcing many garment factories to shut down operations.

"The situation is very volatile. Hundreds of thousands of workers have joined the protests," M Asaduzzaman, an officer in the police control room, told the AFP news agency. "We fired rubber bullets and tear gas to disperse them."

He said some of the protesters were armed with bamboo sticks and their actions had forced factories at Gazipur, just outside the Bangladeshi capital, Dhaka, to close for the day.

Mustafizur Rahman, the deputy police chief of Gazipur, said workers had attacked factories, smashed vehicles, burnt tyres on the roads and tried to torch roadside shops on the sidelines of the rally.

"They are demanding the arrest and execution of the owners of the factories and the collapsed building at Savar," he told AFP.

The overnight rescue of 45 people late on Thursday who were trapped inside the debris of the eight-storey building in the commercial suburb of Savar, on the outskirts of Dhaka, raised hopes of thousands of relatives.

Al Jazeera's special correspondent, not named for security reasons, said that the rescue workers did not have proper equipment.

"It's quite a risky operation and concerete can collapse at any moment on whoever is alive on the inside," said our correspondent reporting from Dhaka.

Hundreds trapped

An estimated 2,000 people had been rescued in two days, at least half of them injured, but up to 1,000 people remained unaccounted for, the Reuters news agency reports.

It prompted new criticism of Western companies who were accused by activists of placing profit before safety by sourcing their products from the country despite its shocking track record of deadly disasters.

British low-cost fashion line Primark and Spanish giant Mango have acknowledged having their products made in the collapsed block, while a host of brands including Wal-Mart and France's Carrefour are investigating.

Italy's Benetton placed large orders with one of the suppliers, documents found by activists appeared to show, but the group has denied having links to the building.

The US said it could not confirm whether any US companies were sourcing garments from the complex, as protesters in San Francisco targeted the headquarters of Gap with banners reading "No More Death Traps".

"But it does underscore that there's a need for the government, owners, buyers and labour to find ways of improving working conditions in Bangladesh,"  Patrick Ventrell, a deputy State Department spokesman, said.

Human Rights Watch said the tragedy showed there was an "urgent need to improve Bangladesh’s protections for worker health and safety".

"Reforms should include a drastic overhaul of the government's system of labour inspections and an end to government efforts to thwart the right of workers to unionise," the rights body said.

"Given the long record of worker deaths in factories, this tragedy was sadly predictable," Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch, said in a statement published on the group's website.

www.shafaqna.com/English

SHAFAQNA (Shia International News Association) – Thousands of garment factory workers in Bangladesh have protested for the second day over the deaths of more than 300 workers after a building collapsed.

Rescuers also found 50 more workers on Friday evening, as they continue to search for large numbers of survivors believed to be still trapped inside the rubble.

Widespread anger has been fuelled by revelations that factory bosses forced 3,000 workers to continue working on Wednesday despite police orders to evacuate the building because of cracks found in the structure the day before.

Police fired tear gas and rubber bullets on Friday as protesters attacked factories and smashed vehicles, forcing many garment factories to shut down operations.

"The situation is very volatile. Hundreds of thousands of workers have joined the protests," M Asaduzzaman, an officer in the police control room, told the AFP news agency. "We fired rubber bullets and tear gas to disperse them."

He said some of the protesters were armed with bamboo sticks and their actions had forced factories at Gazipur, just outside the Bangladeshi capital, Dhaka, to close for the day.

Mustafizur Rahman, the deputy police chief of Gazipur, said workers had attacked factories, smashed vehicles, burnt tyres on the roads and tried to torch roadside shops on the sidelines of the rally.

"They are demanding the arrest and execution of the owners of the factories and the collapsed building at Savar," he told AFP.

The overnight rescue of 45 people late on Thursday who were trapped inside the debris of the eight-storey building in the commercial suburb of Savar, on the outskirts of Dhaka, raised hopes of thousands of relatives.

Hundreds trapped

An estimated 2,000 people had been rescued in two days, at least half of them injured, but up to 1,000 people remained unaccounted for, the Reuters news agency reports.

It prompted new criticism of Western companies who were accused by activists of placing profit before safety by sourcing their products from the country despite its shocking track record of deadly disasters.

British low-cost fashion line Primark and Spanish giant Mango have acknowledged having their products made in the collapsed block, while a host of brands including Wal-Mart and France's Carrefour are investigating.

Italy's Benetton placed large orders with one of the suppliers, documents found by activists appeared to show, but the group has denied having links to the building.

The US said it could not confirm whether any US companies were sourcing garments from the complex, as protesters in San Francisco targeted the headquarters of Gap with banners reading "No More Death Traps".

"But it does underscore that there's a need for the government, owners, buyers and labour to find ways of improving working conditions in Bangladesh,"  Patrick Ventrell, a deputy State Department spokesman, said.

Human Rights Watch said the tragedy showed there was an "urgent need to improve Bangladesh’s protections for worker health and safety".

"Reforms should include a drastic overhaul of the government's system of labour inspections and an end to government efforts to thwart the right of workers to unionise," the rights body said.

"Given the long record of worker deaths in factories, this tragedy was sadly predictable," Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch, said in a statement published on the group's website.-www.shafaqna.com/English

SHAFAQNA-- The death toll from the disastrous factory building collapse in Bangladesh has jumped past 300, as rescue workers and relatives continue their search for possible survivors.

Army spokesman Shahinul Islam on Friday put the death toll from the April 24 collapse at 304. 

He said more than 2,300 people have been rescued, including 72 on Friday, since the eight-story building of the Rana Plaza garment factory collapsed. 

The new death toll was announced as thousands of people still surrounded the site of the incident, in the Dhaka suburb of Savar, in search of missing relatives. 

On Thursday, demonstrators took to the streets of Dhaka to protest against poor working conditions and safety standards, with Western clothing retailers blamed for failing to provide basic working standards for their Asian suppliers. 

Police officials say Rana Plaza factory owners had ignored warnings against allowing workers into the building after deep cracks were detected in the walls the day before the collapse. 

Last November, more than 110 workers died in a blaze that engulfed a factory in an industrial suburb of Dhaka. Over 70 people were also killed when a garment factory building collapsed in the same area in 2005.

www.en.shafaqna.com

SHAFAQNA (Shia International News Association) – The death toll from a building collapse in Bangladesh rose to 149 as rescuers worked overnight to find people trapped in the rubble, authorities say.

Army Brigadier General Mohammed Siddiqul Alam Shikder said "many" people were still trapped and a clearer picture of the rescue operation would be available on Thursday afternoon.

The eight-story building near Dhaka, housing mainly garment factories, collapsed on Wednesday. Workers had warned a day earleir that large cracks had developed in the structure.

Local police chief Mohammaed Asaduzzaman said police and the government's Capital Development Authority had filed separate cases of negligence against the building owner.

Searchers cut holes in the jumbled mess of concrete, passing water and torches to those pinned inside the building as rescue operations illuminated by floodlights continued through the night.

The disaster came less than five months after a factory fire killed 112 people and underscored the unsafe conditions in Bangladesh's booming garment industry, the second biggest in the world.

Large cracks

Workers said they had hesitated to go to into the building on Wednesday morning because it had developed such large cracks a day earlier that it even drew the attention of local news channels.

Abdur Rahim, who worked on the fifth floor, said a factory manager gave assurances that there was no problem, so employees went inside.

"After about an hour or so, the building collapsed suddenly," Rahim said. He next remembered regaining consciousness outside.

On a visit to the site, Home Minister Muhiuddin Khan Alamgir told reporters the building had violated construction codes and "the culprits would be punished".

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has announced a national day of mourning for Thursday when flags will fly half-mast in memory of the victims.

Only the ground floor of the Rana Plaza in the Savar district remained intact after the collapse.

Fire crews said up to 2,000 people were in the building when it fell.

Building collapses are common in Bangladesh. Many multi-storey blocks are built in violation of construction standards.

In 2005, dozens were killed after a multi-storey garment factory collapsed in the same area.-www.shafaqna.com/English

Source: Al Jazeera

SHAFAQNA (Shia International News Association) –An eight-storey block housing factories and a shopping center collapsed on the outskirts of the Bangladeshi capital on Wednesday, killing more than 70 people and injuring hundreds, a government official said.

Fire fighters and army personnel worked frantically through the morning at the Rana Plaza building in Savar, 30 km (19 miles) outside Dhaka, to rescue people trapped inside.

One fireman told Reuters that about 2,000 people were in the building when the upper floors jolted down on top of each other.

Bangladesh's booming garment industry has been plagued by fires and other accidents for years, despite a drive to improve safety standards. In November last year, 112 workers were killed in a blaze at a factory in an industrial suburb of Dhaka.

"It looks like an earthquake has struck here," said one resident as he looked on at the chaotic scene of smashed concrete and ambulances making their way through the crowds of workers and wailing relatives of those still inside.

"I was at work on the third floor, and then suddenly I heard a deafening sound, but couldn't understand what was happening. I ran and was hit by something on my head," said Sohra Begum a worker at one of the garment factories.

M.M. Niazuddin, the government's health secretary, told Reuters that at least 76 people were confirmed dead. Another official said hundreds were being treated for injuries.

Mohammad Asaduzzaman, in charge of the area's police station, said factory owners appeared to have ignored a warning not to allow their workers into the building after a crack was detected in the block on Tuesday.

Buildings in the crowded city of Dhaka are sometimes erected without permission and many do not comply with construction regulations. Dozens died when a garment factory collapsed in the same area eight years ago. -www.shafaqna.com/English

Source:Reuters

SHAFAQNA (Shia International News Association) – Bangladesh’s prime minister has ruled out a new blasphemy law to punish bloggers who defame Islam and Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him), despite facing growing protests from Islamic groups in the secular country.

“They have demanded it. Actually, we don't have any plan to [bring in the law],” Sheikh Hasina told BBC in an interview on Monday, April 8.

“We don't need it. They should know that existing laws are enough.”

Hasina’s comments came just days after hundreds of thousands of supporters of an umbrella organization of Islamists held a massive rally in Dhaka.

In the protest held last Saturday, Islamists led by the Hefajat-e-Islam organization converged on Dhaka's main commercial hub to protest against latest writings by atheist bloggers, said to insult Islam and Prophet Muhammad (PBUH).

Marching to Dhaka's Motijheel commercial area, protesters called for a new blasphemy law, with the provision of the death penalty to punish those who insult Islam and the Prophet Muhammad.

As part of their push for a change in the law, the Hefajat-e-Islam organisation on Monday forced the closure of schools and businesses across the country as part of a general strike.

Television reports said scores of people had been injured in clashes between pro-government activists and Islamists, already infuriated by the recent convictions of leading opposition figures for war crimes.

Leading a secular government in the Muslim-majority country since 2009, Hasina said existing laws were adequate to prosecute anyone accused of insulting a religion.

“This country is a secular democracy. So each and every religion has the right to practice their religion freely and fair,” she said

“But it is not fair to hurt anybody's religious feeling. Always we try to protect every religious sentiment.”

Tension has gripped Bangladesh in recent weeks over postings by bloggers seen as insulting Islam.

Troubles agitated after the death of blogger Ahmed Rajib Haider who was hacked to death near his home in the capital Dhaka.

Dozens of people including Islamists died and hundreds were injured as violence that rocked the country after police forces clashed with thousands of protesters from Islamist parties.

Islamists Demands

Despite ruling out a new blasphemy law, Sheikh Hasina promised to meet reasonable demands from Islamic groups.

“We will go through all the demands and then we will see,” the prime minister said.

“If there is any reasonable one, we will fulfil. If it is not reasonable or not suitable for our country or society we will not accept it

Protesting groups have given a three-week ultimatum to the government to meet their demands, including tough punishment to those who they describe as atheist bloggers, who are also accused of making derogatory comments against Islam.

Under existing cyber laws, anyone convicted of defaming a religion on the Internet can be jailed for up to 10 years.

Death sentences against Islamist leaders on alleged war crimes during the 1971 war also have caused deadly clashes in Bangladesh last month.

So far, three Islamist leaders were sentenced to death on charges of war crimes during the independence war.

The court rulings, however, triggered deadly protests in Bangladesh, which left more than 150 people dead.

Human rights groups have accused the security forces of using excessive force to control the riots.

Yet, Hasina defended the police action.

“Security forces are law enforcing agencies, they have to protect people and people's property” she said.

“You know many police officers were killed… If police are under attack, what will they do?”-www.shafaqna.com/English

Source: On Islam

SHAFAQNA (Shia International News Association) – Hundreds of thousands of people have held protests in Bangladesh to demand that the government introduce an anti-blasphemy law that would include the death penalty for bloggers who insult Islam.

Protest organisers called Saturday's rally the "long march", with many travelling from remote villages to the capital, Dhaka's Motijheel area that became a sea of white skull caps and robes.

Supporters of Hefazat-e-Islam, an Islamist group which draws support from tens of thousands of religious seminaries, converged on Dhaka's main commercial hub to protest against what they said were blasphemous writings by atheist bloggers, shouting "God is great - hang the atheist bloggers".

"I've come here to fight for Islam. We won't allow any bloggers to blaspheme our religion and our beloved Prophet Mohammed," said Shahidul Islam, an imam at a mosque outside Dhaka who walked 20km.

The religious group, which has the backing of country's largest party Jamaat-e-Islami, organised the rally in support of its 13-point demand including enactment of a blasphemy law to prosecute and hang what they call atheist bloggers.

They defied a pro-government national strike by secular protesters - who staged a smaller rival protest in Dhaka - aimed at foiling the Islamists' march.

"Around 200,000 people attended the rally," Dhaka's deputy police commissioner Sheikh Nazmul Alam told AFP news agency, while protest organisers put the number at over half a million.

A local leader of the ruling Awami League party was killed in Bhanga, a town southwest of Dhaka, when Hefazat-e-Islami party supporters clashed with pro-government activists.

Deepening tensions

Al Jazeera's correspondent, who cannot be named for safety reasons, speaking from Dhaka, said that very huge crowds had gathered.

She said that while there was a lot of support for the march from the countryside where Hefazat-e-Islam is good at mobilising people from, the country is very divided.

It was the latest protest to rack Bangladesh, deepening tensions between secularists and the largest Islamic party, Jamaat-e-Islami, whose leaders are under trial for crimes committed during the country's 1971 war of independence.

The bloggers, who deny they are atheists, have sought capital punishment for those found guilty of war crimes during the nation's liberation war.

Both secular and conservative Muslim protesters have taken to the streets over the war crimes trials, and more than 70 people have been killed in the violent protests that have taken place since February when a prominent Jamaat leader was sentenced to death.

A well-known protester and blogger, Ahmed Rajib Haider, was killed reportedly by Jamaat supporters.

Bangladesh says as many as three million people were killed and thousands of women raped by Pakistani troops and local collaborators during the war.

Sheikh Hasina, the current prime minister and Awami League leader, initiated the war crimes trials in 2010. Ten of the defendants convicted or on trial are from Jamaat-e-Islami, while two others belong to main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist party.

Speaking to Al Jazeera, Shakil Ahmed of Ekattor television in Bangladesh, said that the protests on Saturday were peaceful and had been fuelled by misinformation on both sides.

"Wrong information has been spread out by some of the activists," said Ahmed

'More of a reaction'

Zafar Sobhan, editor of the Dhaka Tribune, speaking to Al Jazeera's via Skype from Dhaka, said that while the government was had maintained a "neutral line" and was "scrambling" to prevent an "explosive" situation, he believed it was unlikely that a blasphemy law would be introduced.

Sobhan said that the march was less about a blasphemy law but was more of a reaction to calls for the death penalty for political party leaders being tried for war crimes.

Our correspondent said that the real pressure would be felt on the country's economy.

"Every time there is a strike it shuts down the economy ... Economic issues are likely to put pressure on the ruling Awami party."

Last week, four online writers were arrested on charges of hurting religious sentiment through their Internet writings against Islam.

Sobhan said the arrests were being seen as a "heavy-handed measure" to appease Islamists.

Muhiuddin Khan, Bangladesh home minister, said on Wednesday the government had identified 11 bloggers, including the four detainees, who had hurt the religious sentiments of the nation's majority Muslim population.

The government has blocked about a dozen websites and blogs to stem the unrest. It has also set up a panel, which includes intelligence chiefs, to monitor blasphemy on social media.

Under the country's cyber laws, a blogger or Internet writer can face up to ten years in jail for defaming a religion.-www.shafaqna.com/English

Source: Al Jazeera

SHAFAQNA (Shia International News Association) –Hundreds of thousands of people are protesting in Bangladesh to demand that the government introduce an anti-blasphemy law that would include the death penalty for bloggers who insult Islam.

The protest on Saturday was allegedly sparked after a group of bloggers began criticising conservative religious parties that are widely popular despite Bangladesh's secular constitution.

Dhaka has been virtually cut off from the rest of the country since Friday afternoon, after secularists called a 22-hour nationwide strike to obstruct the march.

Both secular and Muslim protesters have taken to the streets over the war crimes trials of leaders of the Jamaat-e-Islami party in cases related to the 1971 war against Pakistan in which three million people were killed and many thousands of women were raped.

Abdul Quader Mollah was sentenced to life in prison in February spurring youth protests calling for a death sentence for him instead. This led to counter-protests by religious parties in the country.

Clashes erupted days later when well-known protester and blogger, Ahmed Rajib Haider, was killed, followed by more deaths in ensuing violence.

Response to death penalty calls

Speaking to Al Jazeera, Shakil Ahmed, the head of output for Ekattor television in Bangladesh, said that the protests on Saturday were peaceful and had been fuelled by misinformation on both sides.

"Wrong information has been spread out by some of the activists," said Ahmed.

Al Jazeera's correspondent, who cannot be named for safety reasons, speaking from Dhaka on Saturday, said that very large crowds had gathered.

She confirmed that protests were peaceful but said that one death had been reported on Friday night. 
A ruling party activist was shot dead after the secularists clashed with hundreds of seminary students holding a rally in support of the march, local police chief Yasir Arafat told AFP news agency.

"Authorities have become more and more experienced in dealing with the protests ... Right now they are trying to contain the crowds and are making sure that it does not get violent."

Zafar Sobhan, the editor of the Dhaka Tribune, speaking to Al Jazeera's via skype from Dhaka, said that while the government was had maintained a "nuetral line" and was "scrambling" to prevent an "explosive" situation, he thinks it was unlikely that a blasphemy law would be introduced.

He said that he felt that the march was less about a blasphemy law but was more of a reaction to calls for the death penalty for political party leaders being tried for war crimes.

"The march is more of a, if you [the bloggers] are going to demand the death penalty against us [the political party leaders,  then we are going to demand a death penalty against you."

Bloggers arrested

Last week, four online writers were arrested on charges of hurting religious sentiment through their Internet writings against Islam.

Sobhan said the arrests were being seen as a "heavy-handed measure" to appease Islamists.

Operators of top Bangladeshi blogs blacked out their sites on Thursday to protest against the government move.

They say the government has been kowtowing to the religious activists.

Home Minister Muhiuddin Khan on Wednesday said the government had identified 11 bloggers, including the four detainees, who had hurt the religious sentiments of the nation's majority Muslim population.

The government has blocked about a dozen websites and blogs to stem the unrest. It has also set up a panel, which includes intelligence chiefs, to monitor blasphemy on social media.

Under the country's cyber laws, a blogger or Internet writer can face up to ten years in jail for defaming a religion. -www.shafaqna.com/English

Source:AL Jazeera

SHAFAQNA (Shia International News Association) – 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.

This sort of crackdown on free speech in Bangladesh is nothing new. In the last decade, several journalists, including a cartoonist, have been arrested under the same blasphemy law under which the bloggers were arrested -- an archaic legacy of the British colonial system.

Nonetheless, the four arrests took the nation by surprise as the Awami League, the party leading the center-left coalition government, likes to be identified as a secular political party. They also undercut one of the party's major electoral pledges, to build a digital Bangladesh -- a promise believed to have swayed a decisive number of young voters in the last national election.

Social media and blogs were flooded with posts furious about the arrests.

"Muzzling the voice of freethinking bloggers: An alarming development in Bangladesh!” read the headline of a post by A.H. Jafar Ullah.

Hours before he was arrested, Parvez had gone after the prime minister and his party, the Awami League, for ostensibly being secular while actually kowtowing to the Islamists.

"What do our partisan intellectuals opine about Sheikh Hasina [the prime minister] being a believer?" blogged Parvez at Unmochon.com.

Shuvo, the youngest arrestee and a member of Bangladesh's Hindu minority, wrote to express his frustration over the media's failure to fight discrimination, noting that repeated attacks on Buddhists and Hindus in the last year had not driven the press to promote a secular society.

Members of the blogging community in Bangladesh who spoke with The Huffington Post said they felt that the arrests had humiliated those four men, and by extension all bloggers, and demonstrated the government's contempt for bloggers. Journalists and development activists criticized the arrests as a violation of the freedom of speech.

A.W. Khan worked in Bangladesh for the International Crisis Group, a nonprofit organization seeking to prevent deadly conflict, for a year and a half. He said he was not at all surprised about the Muslim-dominant government's crackdown on bloggers, given its growing willingness to go along with the Islamists' agenda for political gain.

"These are uncharted waters for Bangladesh. Principally because this is the first time in its 42 year history that a popular non-political movement and Islamists have so heavily influenced the country's political climate. This has overturned the dominance of the three main players in Bangladeshi politics: the governing Awami League, the main opposition BNP [Bangladesh Nationalist Party] and the military," said Khan.

"Given the existing polarities in Bangladeshi politics, between the largely center-left Awami League and the center-right BNP, it's more likely that these two forces will try to appropriate these new voices for their political purpose," he added.

The country’s law minister, Shafique Ahmed, enraged journalists further on Tuesday by announcing that his government was planning to strengthen its control over social media, blogs and online newspapers.

Abu Mustafiz, a blogger and online activist who runs Unmochon.com, said bloggers are essentially mistreated as a minority group in Bangladesh.

"The government won't incite Islamists anyway," he said. "Bloggers are just like any other minority community in terms of their number in a country of 160 million. It is easier for the government to brand bloggers atheists and have them arrested."

And the crackdown may continue. On Wednesday, Home Minister M.K. Alamgir said the government has a list of seven more "atheist bloggers" who will soon be arrested.

The arrests came in the wake of threats from a little-known Islamist party called Hefazat-e Islam that threatened to march toward the capital on April 6 to press for "punishing all atheist bloggers."

Bloggers ignited the ire of Hefazat-e Islam by launching a mass protest advocating the separation of politics and religion, as well as justice for war crimes victims. The protest began on Feb. 5 and has been going non-stop in one of Dhaka's busiest intersections, Shahbagh -- hence it has been dubbed the Shahbagh movement.

In particular, the protesters are demanding that victims have the same right as the accused to appeal a verdict in the International Crimes Tribunal, which was set up by the current government to deal with war crimes committed during Bangladesh's independence war in 1971.

Right now, the ICT is trying nine men for crimes against humanity during the war. Three million people were killed in the war's nine months, and hundreds of thousands of women were raped.

Seven of those being tried are leaders of Jamaat-e-Islami, a party that opposed the country's independence from Pakistan and perpetrated war crimes listed by the Guinness Book of Records as among the five deadliest 20th-century killings. Two of the accused Jamaat leaders have been sentenced to death by hanging. The protesters, however, want the ICT to try Jamaat-e-Islami as an entity, as well as the nine individuals.

After bloggers began calling for the protest, Jamaat activists ran an aggressive online campaign against Shahbagh movement organizers, sometimes with doctored websites showing posts defaming Islam.

But the decision to arrest the bloggers still came out of the blue.

"When the same government that formed a tribunal to try war criminals takes a stance against free-thinking and pro-liberation bloggers, then the new generation has the right to ask, 'Et tu, Brutus?'" said Imran H. Sarker, a spokesman for those organizing the Shahbagh movement.

"What does it signal when a government takes such a position?" asked Mehzabin Ahmed, a development activist. "This is a clear violation of a citizen's constitutional right."

A senior television journalist summed up his anger on his Facebook page. "In this country, it is not a big issue to attack someone with rifle, machetes or hurling bombs at him/her. It becomes a big issue when you hurt somebody using your pen and keyboard," posted JE Mamun.

Meanwhile, several people -- including a blogger and the child of someone who organized Shabagh movement efforts elsewhere in Bangladesh -- were killed, allegedly for organizing the protests, and police failed to name any suspect until recently.

Even after all the bloggers' arrests, Hefazat-e Islam is not happy with the government.

In a statement released after the detention of the three bloggers on Monday, the Islamist party said those arrested were not well-known. It called for finding and punishing the "real culprits."-www.shafaqna.com/English