Wife of Slain Atheist Avijit Roy: “Is Bangladesh Going to Be the Next Pakistan or Afghanistan?”

Back in February, author Dr. Avijit Roy (below) and his wife Rafida Bonya Ahmed were returning home from a book fair in Dhaka, Bangladesh where they were promoting Roy’s latest work when two assailants came after them with cleavers and “hacked them mercilessly.”

Roy died shortly afterwards. Ahmed soon issued a public statement in which she claimed “the local police stood close by and did not act” while they were being attacked. We learned this month that Asim Umar, the leader of the Indian branch of Al Qaeda, has claimed responsibility for the attack.

In a lengthy interview with Reuters published yesterday, Ahmed lamented the tepid response from Bangladeshi officials:

“This was well planned, choreographed — a global act of terrorism,” she said. “But what almost bothers me more is that no one from the Bangladesh government has reached out to me. It’s as if I don’t exist, and they are afraid of the extremists. Is Bangladesh going to be the next Pakistan or Afghanistan?”

…

“We were really, really happy,” said Ahmed, who had edited her husband’s books in Atlanta, but had not seen his influence first-hand in Bangladesh. “He had finally gotten to show me — in Bangladesh — how and why his work was so important.”

The story of how she met her husband and how their lives were constantly threatened is worth a few minutes of your attention. Read the full piece here.

Ahmed also created a video which was shown at American Atheists’ recent convention in Tennessee and is now online:

Wow… what a courageous individual. And her words carry even more weight in light of another brutal killing of an atheist blogger in Bangladesh just this morning.

(Image via Wikipedia. Portions of this article were published earlier)