Activist's killing a body blow to gay movement in Bangladesh

KOLKATA: Following the killing of the editor of Bangladesh’s first LGBT magazine titled Roopbaan, fear is palpable among gay rights activists in the nation. The brutal murder of Julhash Mannan and his friend has left them so scared that they have either decided to relocate or stop all communication for fear of being the next target.Bangladeshi gay person and LGBT rights activist Riaz Osmani, who currently works as an IT consultant in London, used to have a lot of online interactions with Julhash. “I spoke to Julhash many times. He worked on Roopbaan and sent me free copies. My input was also requested for a writing assignment,” Osmani said from London.According to Osmani, LGBT activists in Bangladesh have to “protect themselves by hook or by crook”. “I now want to see if the Commonwealth can be used to exert extreme pressure on the Bangladesh government to come down hard on the murderers and their associates with the full force of the law before these murders take place. Currently, the government partially blames the atheists for their murders and will probably blame the gays for being gay. The latter, however, has not happened as yet,” said Osmani.Co-founder of Kolkata-based Sappho for Equality Malobika is devastated with the news of Julhash’s killing. “Last year, I went to Dhaka and met Julhash at his residence. It is so scary to think that the killers came to that very residence in the disguise of courier persons to murder him!” Malobika said. She is in touch with members of Bangladesh’s LGBT community. “Some time back, a hitlist of 20 members of the community was prepared. Two from that list have been killed. Everyone wants to flee Bangladesh now. One in the list is a boy without a passport! If voicing human rights concerns leads to such consequences it means the nation has no space for democracy. I wish members of the civil society speak on this issue,” Malobika said.Last year, Bangladesh’s first lesbian comic character called Dhee was launched in the format of 10 flashcards. It was conceived as an advocacy material for the countrywide campaign that Boys of Bangladesh (BOB) was conducting as part of Project Dhee. Tanvir Alim, a member of BOB, said, “We are not talking to anyone right now. Dhee was part of an ongoing project,” Alim said. However, he couldn’t say anything about the future of Project Dhee.Exiled Bangladeshi blogger Ananya Azad had met Julhash two years ago and remembers him as a “wonderful human being”. Azad now fears for the life of his Bangladeshi gay friends. “Gay people in my country are afraid that the movement will be completely destroyed now,” Azad said from an undisclosed location in Germany.