{"id":25366,"date":"2016-05-15T05:26:51","date_gmt":"2016-05-15T05:26:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/gay-rights-activists-murders-bangladesh-makes\/"},"modified":"2016-05-15T05:27:15","modified_gmt":"2016-05-15T05:27:15","slug":"gay-rights-activists-murders-bangladesh-makes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/gay-rights-activists-murders-bangladesh-makes\/","title":{"rendered":"Gay-rights activists’ murders: Bangladesh makes arrest"},"content":{"rendered":"

{Arrest of “Ansarullah Bangla Team member” comes three weeks after Xulhaz Mannan and Mahbub Tonoy were killed in Dhaka.}<\/p>\n

Bangladesh police have arrested a suspect over the murder of two gay-rights activists, part of a series of murders of intellectuals, writers and religious minorities.<\/p>\n

The arrest of Farabi Shafiur Rahman on Monday came three weeks after six attackers carrying machetes and guns killed Xulhaz Mannan, editor of a magazine for Bangladesh’s lesbian, gay and transgender (LGBT) communities, and fellow activist Mahbub Tonoy in a Dhaka apartment last month.<\/p>\n

“We’ve arrested one man in connection with the murder of Xulhaz Mannan,” Maruf Hossain Sorder, Dhaka police spokesman, told AFP news agency.<\/p>\n

“He is a member of the Ansarullah Bangla Team.”<\/p>\n

Police said Shihab – who has denied carrying out the killings – owned one of two guns that were used in the murders.<\/p>\n

{{Conflicting claims}}<\/p>\n

The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) group has claimed a number of the killings, but authorities insist there is no evidence of the group’s presence in the country, saying homegrown groups are behind the attacks.<\/p>\n

An al-Qaeda-affiliated group said it was behind the killings of Mannan and Tonoy, saying the two men had worked to “promote homosexuality” in Bangladesh.<\/p>\n

Bangladesh police chiefs have said their murders bear the hallmarks of local armed groups, while the secular Awami League-led government of Sheikh Hasina, the prime minister, has blamed the opposition.<\/p>\n

Sunday’s arrest comes after an elderly Buddhist monk was found hacked to death on Saturday in a temple in the southeastern district of Bandarban – the seventh such killing since the start of last month.<\/p>\n

Last year four secular bloggers and a publisher were hacked to death. Christians, Hindus and Sufi, Ahmadi and Shia Muslims have also been killed since.<\/p>\n

No one has yet been convicted over those deaths, despite a number of arrests.<\/p>\n

\"Shihab,<\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

{Arrest of “Ansarullah Bangla Team member” comes three weeks after Xulhaz Mannan and Mahbub Tonoy were killed in Dhaka.} Bangladesh police have arrested a suspect over the murder of two gay-rights activists, part of a series of murders of intellectuals, writers and religious minorities. The arrest of Farabi Shafiur Rahman on Monday came three weeks […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[101],"byline":[2474],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-25366","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-internationl","byline-al-jazeera"],"bylines":[{"id":2474,"name":"AL JAZEERA","slug":"al-jazeera","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":null}],"contributors":[{"id":2474,"name":"AL JAZEERA","slug":"al-jazeera","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":null}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25366","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25366"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25366\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25366"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25366"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25366"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=25366"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=25366"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}