The Teacher-Student Centre at the University of Dhaka, near the place where Avijit Roy was attacked in February 2015.
The Teacher-Student Centre at the University of Dhaka, near the place where Avijit Roy was attacked in February 2015.
Aashaa, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0, web only, not for the book)
Recent

Avijit Roy

1972–2015
Atheist

Avijit Roy had no faith to lose. He was a Hindu by label, and his physics-professor father planted, he said, "the first seed of free thought and doubt". His disbelief in a creator came in his student years. From 2001 he gave it a home online for Bengali freethinkers in Mukto-Mona, and in books (2011, 2014) arguing that atheism was freedom from belief and that faith could spread like a virus. After 2013, as bloggers were jailed and killed, he campaigned for them and warned his own side that atheism did not free anyone from hatred. He was murdered in Dhaka in 2015 by men a court found had branded him an atheist.

The belief timeline

19722015Doubt (disbelief)student years, c. 1988–94, undatedDeclaration2001 (site); 2011 (book)Cost2013–15Revision11 Feb 2015
  1. Faith (none documented) — Hindu by family label; no childhood devotion recorded; father indifferent to God [3][49]
  2. Doubt (seed) (childhood, undated) — His father put books in his hands and, in Roy's own words, planted "the first seed of free thought and doubt" [32]
  3. Doubt (disbelief) (student years, c. 1988–94, undated) — Disbelief in a creator begins after reading Taslima Nasrin and Aroj Ali Matubbar; rejects rites [33]
  4. Declaration (2001 (site); 2011 (book)) — Creates Mukto-Mona, "the first online freethinking platform in Bangla"; in the 2011 book he and Raihan Abir state they are disbelievers in God [4][40]
  5. Cost (2013–15) — Hit list, arrests of four bloggers, Farabi's threats, Rokomari withdrawal, the murder [11][14][46]
  6. Revision (11 Feb 2015) — After Chapel Hill he writes that atheism does not by itself free anyone from prejudice or hatred; the 2015 Free Inquiry essay adds that most Muslims "are peaceful" because they do not follow the Quran literally [9][47]
Notes to the timeline (11)
  1. [3] Family religion: Hindu by family; his brother says he was "Hindu by religious title" and never wanted to be called a Hindu; the New Yorker speaks of "his own Hindu background". No source records a childhood faith of his own — Anujit Roy, "Ekjon spashtobhashi, sochchar juboker kotha" (A plain-spoken, vocal young man), in Je alo choriye gelo sobokhane (Mukto-Mona e-book, 12 Sept 2016; IA Avijit-roy-books, texts/je-alo.txt, je-alo.djvu.xml), scan leaves 24–29. The younger brother; copyrighted, leaf 25; Samanth Subramanian, "The Hit List", The New Yorker, 21 Dec 2015 (texts/newyorker-hit-list.txt). Copyrighted.
  2. [49] His father told the New Yorker: "I don't bother about whether God exists... Let him do his business, and let me do my business"; he called his son an "addabaaj" and warned him in 2015 that he was a targeted person whose name had been publicised as an atheist — Subramanian, New Yorker.
  3. [32] In Roy's own memoir, as quoted by his father (English) and by Raihan Abir (Bengali), his father "did not bring me up like a 'prince'", but introduced him to the world of books and "put in my mind the seeds of 'freethinking and inquisitiveness'" (Bengali: the first seed of free thought and doubt, মুক্তবুদ্ধি আর সংশয়ের প্রথম বীজ); he learnt Tagore's poem "Question" from him. The memoir's original place of publication was not found — Ajoy Roy, "Avijit in His Father's Eyes", in Mukto-Mona's 44th-birthday page, 12 Sept 2015,; Raihan Abir (per the contents list), "Tomar aloy moshal hate aj amra sobai Avijit", same e-book, leaves 41–43; copyrighted. Quotes Roy's memoir, leaves 42–43. Reported at second hand; the original has not been seen.
  4. [33] His brother's account of the break: he was a devoted reader of Taslima Nasrin and Aroj Ali Matubbar; "from then" he took up atheistic ideas and saw their reasonableness; Hindu only by label; disliked puja, touching feet in reverence and shraddha rites; ignored food rules; said at home he would not perform shraddha for his parents; "his disbelief in the creator began in student life"; he was also outspoken against separating men and women, which cost him a BUET lecturer post after a dispute with a teacher — Roy, Je alo choriye gelo sobokhane, leaves 25–26.
  5. [4] Created Mukto-Mona ("Free Mind"), the first online freethinking platform in Bangla, in 2001, as a student at the National University of Singapore (widow); Roy himself wrote that he founded it in 2001 "with a singular intention: to debate and discuss on controversial, but utterly important issues" (MM13) and that he created the site with like-minded writers in 2001 (MMbio); BBC says 2000; his father says it grew out of a site of his own (see). The Yahoo! group of May 2001 and the 2002 site remain Wikipedia-only — Rafida Bonya Ahmed, "Fighting Machetes with Pens", Voltaire Lecture, Hilton Metropole, London, 2 July 2015; transcript at, para. 7; Avijit Roy, blog post for Blasphemy Day 2013, Mukto-Mona English blog, 6 Oct 2013 (texts/mm-birthday-2013.txt); Bengali original 30 Sept 2013 (mm-blasphemy-day-2013-bn.txt); Mukto-Mona, "Avijit Roy's Life and Work" (English and Bengali, texts/mm-biography.txt, mm-biography-bn.txt), giving Roy's two paragraphs about himself from From Nothing to the Universe (Shunyo theke Mohabishwa); also "Avijit Roy's Quotes" and "Quotes from Facebook" pages (texts/mm-quotes.txt, mm-facebook.txt); BBC News, "US-Bangladesh blogger Avijit Roy hacked to death", 27 Feb 2015 (texts/bbc-2015-02-27.txt); English Wikipedia, "Avijit Roy"; "Ajoy Roy"; "Attacks on secularists in Bangladesh". A map. Several of its birth details (1972, Dhaka birthplace) are contradicted by the father's essay [30]. Accounts differ; see the disputed points.
  6. [40] Obiswasher Dorshon (Feb 2011, 2nd ed. Feb 2012), written with Raihan Abir: the preface says both authors are free of conventional religious belief and disbelievers in God; that the book offers a science-based analysis of why, "not a made-up story out of personal experience"; and hopes to show that disbelief or atheism can be the most logical position for an intelligent person — Avijit Roy and Raihan Abir, Obiswasher Dorshon (The Philosophy of Disbelief), Shuddhashar, Feb 2011; 2nd ed. Feb 2012; e-book Mar 2012; IA Avijit-roy-books, texts/obiswasher-dorshon.txt and .djvu.xml. Cited by scan leaf, leaf 9.
  7. [11] Context: war crimes trials from 2010; the Shahbag movement of Jan–Feb 2013; Islamist groups produced a list of nearly eighty (widow: 84) "atheist" bloggers and demanded a death-penalty blasphemy law; four bloggers were arrested on 1–2 April 2013. State: in April the Dhaka police arrested bloggers over posts "attack[ing] Islam and Hinduism"; Subrata Adhikari Shuvo, Russel Parvez, Mashiur Rahman Biplob and Asif Mohiuddin were indicted in September under Section 57 of the ICT Act — Ahmed, "Fighting Machetes with Pens" (2015), paras. 21–23; Trisha Ahmed and Avijit Roy, "Freethought Under Attack in Bangladesh", Free Inquiry vol. 33 no. 6 (Oct/Nov 2013), web version 8 Oct 2013 (Wayback of secularhumanism.org; texts/freethought-under-attack.txt); US Department of State, 2013 Report on International Religious Freedom: Bangladesh, 28 July 2014 (Wayback copy of 2009-2017.state.gov/j/drl/rls/irf/2013/sca/222325.htm). texts/state-irf-2013-bangladesh.txt. US federal work.
  8. [14] He and his wife arrived in Dhaka on 16 February 2015 for the national book fair; on 26 February, leaving the fair, both were attacked with machetes on the roadside near Dhaka University; she suffered head wounds and lost a thumb; police nearby did not intervene (her account) — Ahmed, "Fighting Machetes with Pens" (2015), paras. 2–3; Subramanian, New Yorker; DS21b. Her testimony; "police stood by" is her account is the only source for this, as for the other details in this chapter cited to that source alone.
  9. [46] Farabi's threats: early in 2014 he posted that killing Roy was a religious duty ("fard") for Muslims; the last threat said Roy lived in America so could not be killed now, but "will be killed when he comes back" (reported by BDNews24, quoted by Roy, the Guardian, the New Yorker and the BBC); Farabi had first drawn attention in Feb 2013 by threatening the imam who would lead Rajib Haider's funeral prayer, was arrested and quickly bailed (Roy's account) — Avijit Roy, Biswasher Virus (The Virus of Faith), Jagriti Prakashani, 1st ed. Feb 2014, 2nd ed. June 2014; the free "Station e-book", 3rd e-book printing Nov 2016, IA biswasher-virus-avijit-roy, text texts/biswasher-virus.txt and .djvu.xml; cited by leaf = printed page (the preface to the 2nd edition is leaves 6–17, signed 18 May 2014). A second scan (texts/biswasher-virus-bn2.txt, IA Avijit-roy-books) is the same text. Bengali read by hand from the OCR, leaves 8, 10; Avijit Roy, "The Virus of Faith", Free Inquiry, April/May 2015, pp. 59–62 (CFI PDF via Wayback; texts/free-inquiry.pdf, free-inquiry-tidy.txt), p. 59; Grd15b; Subramanian, New Yorker; News, "US-Bangladesh blogger Avijit Roy hacked to death".
  10. [9] After the Chapel Hill shooting he posted on 11 Feb 2015 that atheism, for him "a rational concept to oppose any unscientific and irrational belief", does not automatically free anyone from prejudice or hatred, and cited Craig Hicks; he also wrote that those who thought victory could come without sacrifice lived in "a fool's paradise" (both in copyright; paraphrase). The BBC quoted the first phrase on 27 Feb 2015 — Mukto-Mona, "Avijit Roy's 44th Birthday" page (texts/mm-avijit-en.txt). Copyrighted, facebook page; Mukto-Mona, "Avijit Roy's 44th Birthday", quotes page; Ahmed, "Fighting Machetes with Pens" (2015), paras. 10, 12–13; News, "US-Bangladesh blogger Avijit Roy hacked to death".
  11. [47] Free Inquiry, April/May 2015, pp. 59–62: Roy says religious extremism is like a highly contagious virus; claims the publication of Biswasher Virus created grounds for testing whether faith acts as a virus, "the virus of faith is dangerously real"; says "of course" most Muslims are not terrorists; the author note was apparently written before his death ("At press time, we learned that Dr. Roy was killed") — Roy, Free Inquiry, pp. 59–62.

The Virus of Faith

On 27 February 2015 the spokesperson of the United States Department of State opened her daily briefing with a statement:

On Bangladesh, the United States condemns in the strongest terms the brutal murder of Avijit Roy, which was horrific in its brutality and cowardice.12

Avijit was a journalist, a humanist, a husband, and a friend, and we extend our condolences to his family and friends.32

The evening before, Avijit Roy, a Bangladeshi-born American engineer who wrote in Bengali about science and unbelief, had been attacked with machetes as he and his wife left the national book fair in Dhaka. He died on the way to hospital, and his wife survived with terrible wounds.456 This chapter asks how a boy who grew up among a physics professor's books came to write on the internet, in his own language, that God did not exist, and what that cost him.

The Teacher-Student Centre at the University of Dhaka, near the place where Avijit Roy was attacked in February 2015.
The Teacher-Student Centre at the University of Dhaka, near the place where Avijit Roy was attacked in February 2015.Aashaa, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0, web only, not for the book)

A professor's son

By his birth certificate, as his father recalled, he was born on 12 September 1971, in Nazira in Upper Assam, where his parents were refugees from the war that created Bangladesh; his school papers give 1972, and accounts differ.78 His father, Ajoy Roy, was a professor of physics at Dhaka University and had fought in the war; the family came back to Dhaka in January 1972 and lived in a university flat, where the boy grew up reading from his father's shelves, science books, Satyajit Ray, Tagore and Shakespeare.910 The family was Hindu by name, and his brother writes that he was Hindu only by label and never wanted to be called one; no source records any childhood faith of his own.11 His father, asked about God years later, said he did not bother about whether God existed: let him do his business, and let me do mine.12 On his timeline there is no faith to mark.

In a memoir his father quoted after his death, Roy wrote that his father had not brought him up like a prince, but had introduced him to books and planted in his mind the first seed of free thought and doubt.13 On the timeline, this is his first doubt, a seed from childhood.

Curzon Hall, University of Dhaka. Roy grew up on the university campus, where his father taught physics.
Curzon Hall, University of Dhaka. Roy grew up on the university campus, where his father taught physics.Biswarup Ganguly, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 3.0)

Disbelief

He took a degree in mechanical engineering at the Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology in 1994.14 His brother writes that he was a devoted reader of the Bangladeshi writers Taslima Nasrin and Aroj Ali Matubbar, and that his disbelief in a creator began in his student years; he disliked the puja, the touching of feet in reverence and the rites for the dead, and said at home that he would not perform them for his parents.15 His second doubt on the timeline is the adult disbelief, and it rests on his brother's account alone. In December 1998 he went to Singapore on a scholarship, and he took a doctorate at the National University of Singapore.1617

The campus of the Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology, where Roy studied mechanical engineering.
The campus of the Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology, where Roy studied mechanical engineering.Ragib Hasan (User:Ragib), via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.5)
The Kent Ridge campus of the National University of Singapore, where Roy studied and founded Mukto-Mona.
The Kent Ridge campus of the National University of Singapore, where Roy studied and founded Mukto-Mona.alex.ch., via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0)

Mukto-Mona

In 2001, as a student in Singapore, he created Mukto-Mona, "Free Mind," which his widow calls the first online freethinking platform in Bengali; his father says that Avijit took over and renamed a small site of his own.1819 Roy described it as a gathering of freethinkers, rationalists, sceptics, atheists and humanists, mainly of Bengali and South Asian descent, and himself as an advocate of atheism, science and metaphysical naturalism.2021 Through the site he met Rafida Bonya Ahmed, who shared his outlook, and they married in 2007; they wrote in Bengali deliberately, to bring science, philosophy and art to Bengali readers.222324 Between 2006 and 2008, accounts differ on the year, he moved to Atlanta and worked in software.25 In 2011, with Raihan Abir, he published Obiswasher Dorshon, "The Philosophy of Disbelief," whose preface said that both authors were disbelievers in God, and that disbelief could be the most logical position for an intelligent person; atheism, they wrote, was not another belief but freedom from belief, as with not believing in ghosts.2627 His declaration on the timeline is the website in 2001 and the book in 2011.

Atlanta, where Roy lived and worked in software from the late 2000s.
Atlanta, where Roy lived and worked in software from the late 2000s.brandon walker, via Wikimedia Commons (CC0)

Shahbag

In early 2013 the Shahbag movement in Dhaka demanded the punishment of war criminals of 1971, and Islamist groups answered with a list of about eighty "atheist" bloggers and a demand for a death penalty for blasphemy.28 The coalition Hefazat-e-Islam asked for capital punishment for maligning Allah, Islam and the Prophet, and for the arrest of the movement's "atheist leaders" and bloggers.293031 The State Department recorded that

In April the Dhaka police arrested bloggers for publishing posts "attack[ing] Islam and Hinduism" and seized their computers, modems, and external hard drives.3228

The government regulator, the State Department reported, removed most of the posts from two blog platforms "for defaming Islam and the Prophet Muhammad."3334 Roy spent two months campaigning for the four arrested bloggers, writing in English to draw international attention, until they were released on bail that June.35 In 2014 one of the four, Asif Mohiuddin, collected a free expression award from the international humanist movement on behalf of "fellow atheist bloggers, including ... Avijit Roy."3637

Shahbag in Dhaka during the protest of February 2013.
Shahbag in Dhaka during the protest of February 2013.Nasir Khan Saikat, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0, web only, not for the book)

The virus of faith

The murder of the blogger Rajib Haider in February 2013 sent Roy back to a chapter of his earlier book, and in February 2014 he published Biswasher Virus, "The Virus of Faith," dedicated to Haider as the first victim of the virus of faith in the Shahbag movement; it went to the top of the book fair's best-seller list.3839 The book, he said, targeted no particular religion or prophet.39 Religious extremism, he argued in an American magazine in 2015, behaved like a contagious virus; but of course, he added, most Muslims were not terrorists.40 A British-Bangladeshi writer who worked with him said that his Bengali writing tried to educate without attacking religion head on, and that he thought offending people the wrong approach; a reporter for The New Yorker found him, at times, as inflexible as his opponents.41

That spring, the online bookseller Rokomari withdrew his books after a militant, Shafiur Rahman Farabi, called for an attack on its office; no court or state had banned them.42 Early in 2014 Farabi had posted that killing Roy was a religious duty, and later that he could not be killed now, since he lived in America, but would be killed when he came back.43 In February 2015, after the Chapel Hill shooting in North Carolina, Roy cited its killer, Craig Hicks, and wrote that atheism was for him a rational stand against unscientific and irrational belief, but that being an atheist did not by itself free anyone from prejudice or hatred.44 His revision on the timeline is not a change of belief but a warning to his own side.

Dhaka, February 2015

He and his wife arrived in Dhaka in mid-February 2015 for the book fair. On 26 February, leaving the fair, they were attacked on the roadside near Dhaka University.4 His body lay in state at the university and was donated, as he had wished, to Dhaka Medical College.45 Six members of the United States Congress wrote to the Secretary of State, saying they were

deeply troubled by the brutal public murder of American writer Dr. Avijit Roy.4647

The State Department later said that the al-Qaida-inspired group Ansarullah Bangla Team had claimed responsibility, and offered a reward of up to five million dollars.48495051 In February 2021 a tribunal in Dhaka sentenced five members of the banned group, which the Bangladeshi press calls Ansar al-Islam, to death, and Farabi to life for incitement; the court, as reported, found that they had branded Roy an atheist and killed him to gag freedom of expression.5253 His widow said that prosecuting a few foot soldiers was not justice.53 His publisher, Dipan, had been murdered in October 2015.54

The Raju Memorial Sculpture at Dhaka University, the landmark beside which Roy was attacked, in a modern photograph.
The Raju Memorial Sculpture at Dhaka University, the landmark beside which Roy was attacked, in a modern photograph.Biswarup Ganguly, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 3.0)
The title page of the House Foreign Affairs subcommittee hearing "Bangladesh's Fracture: Political and Religious Extremism," April 2015.
The title page of the House Foreign Affairs subcommittee hearing "Bangladesh's Fracture: Political and Religious Extremism," April 2015.US House of Representatives, Committee on Foreign Affairs, Subcommittee on Asia and the Pacific, hearing 'Bangladesh's Fracture: Political and Religious Extremism', 30 April 2015, Serial No. 114-46 (US Government Publishing Office), via the Internet Archive
Page 51 of the same hearing, where a witness recalls that "Avijit Roy was hacked to death as he left the Dhaka Book Fair."
Page 51 of the same hearing, where a witness recalls that "Avijit Roy was hacked to death as he left the Dhaka Book Fair."US House of Representatives, Committee on Foreign Affairs, Subcommittee on Asia and the Pacific, hearing 'Bangladesh's Fracture: Political and Religious Extremism', 30 April 2015, Serial No. 114-46 (US Government Publishing Office), via the Internet Archive

Did his unbelief change shape?

He had no faith to lose: a Hindu label, a father indifferent to God, and a seed of doubt planted, he said, by that father's books. The disbelief came in his student years, and from 2001 he gave it a home online, in Bengali, for others like him. It grew more urgent after 2013, when bloggers were jailed and killed, and The Virus of Faith named the danger he saw in religion. In his last month he turned his argument on his own side as well, warning that atheism did not make anyone free of hatred. He did not change his mind; he was killed for it.

Taslima Nasrin, the Bangladeshi writer whose books, his brother says, started Roy's own disbelief, has her own chapter in this book.

Footnotes

  1. Jen Psaki, State Department spokesperson: US Department of State, Daily Press Briefing, February 27, 2015. texts/state-dpb-2015-02-27.txt, Daily Press Briefing 27 Feb 2015, opening remarks. ↩

  2. State, Daily Press Briefing, 27 Feb 2015. ↩ ↩2

  3. Jen Psaki: State, Daily Press Briefing, 27 Feb 2015. ↩

  4. Rafida Bonya Ahmed, "Fighting Machetes with Pens", Voltaire Lecture, Hilton Metropole, London, 2 July 2015; transcript at, paras. 2–3; Samanth Subramanian, "The Hit List", The New Yorker, 21 Dec 2015 (texts/newyorker-hit-list.txt). Copyrighted; DS21b. Her testimony; "police stood by" is her account is the only source for this, as for the other details in this chapter cited to that source alone. ↩ ↩2

  5. US Department of State, Rewards for Justice – Reward Offer ... Murder of Avijit Roy and Attack on Rafida Bonya Ahmed, 20 Dec 2021. texts/state-rfj-2021-12.txt, 20 Dec 2021. ↩

  6. Daily Star, "Avijit murder: 5 get death penalty, one life term", 16 Feb 2021; [DS21b] Daily Star, "He was killed to gag free speech", 17 Feb 2021 (texts/dailystar-verdict-2021.txt, dailystar-gag-2021.txt). These report the judge's observations and the judgment's account of the plot; the judgment itself was not found online; DS21b; The Business Standard, 16 Feb 2021; [Benar21] BenarNews, 16 Feb 2021; [BBC21] BBC News, Feb 2021; [Grd22] Guardian, 21 Nov 2022 (texts/tbs-verdict-2021.txt, benar-verdict-2021.txt, bbc-verdict-2021.txt, guardian-2022-11-21.txt); Agence France-Presse, "American atheist blogger hacked to death in Bangladesh", Guardian, 27 Feb 2015; [Grd15b] "Avijit Roy, the blogger who wouldn't back down in the face of threats", Guardian, 27 Feb 2015 (texts/guardian-2015-02-27.txt, guardian-farabi-2015-02-27.txt); Subramanian, New Yorker. ↩

  7. Ajoy Roy, "Avijit in His Father's Eyes", in Mukto-Mona's 44th-birthday page, 12 Sept 2015,; Mukto-Mona, "Avijit Roy's Life and Work" (English and Bengali, texts/mm-biography.txt, mm-biography-bn.txt), giving Roy's two paragraphs about himself from From Nothing to the Universe (Shunyo theke Mohabishwa); also "Avijit Roy's Quotes" and "Quotes from Facebook" pages (texts/mm-quotes.txt, mm-facebook.txt); Mukto-Mona, "Avijit Roy's 44th Birthday" page (texts/mm-avijit-en.txt). Copyrighted; English Wikipedia, "Avijit Roy"; "Ajoy Roy"; "Attacks on secularists in Bangladesh". A map. Several of its birth details (1972, Dhaka birthplace) are contradicted by the father's essay [30]. Accounts differ; see the disputed points. ↩

  8. Roy, "Avijit in His Father's Eyes"; Raihan Abir (per the contents list), "Tomar aloy moshal hate aj amra sobai Avijit", same e-book, leaves 41–43; copyrighted. Quotes Roy's memoir, leaf 41. ↩

  9. Roy, "Avijit in His Father's Eyes"; Abir, leaf 41; France-Presse, Guardian; DS21b. ↩

  10. Roy, "Avijit in His Father's Eyes"; Abir, leaf 42. ↩

  11. Anujit Roy, "Ekjon spashtobhashi, sochchar juboker kotha" (A plain-spoken, vocal young man), in Je alo choriye gelo sobokhane (Mukto-Mona e-book, 12 Sept 2016; IA Avijit-roy-books, texts/je-alo.txt, je-alo.djvu.xml), scan leaves 24–29. The younger brother; copyrighted, leaf 25; Subramanian, New Yorker. ↩

  12. Subramanian, New Yorker. ↩

  13. Roy, "Avijit in His Father's Eyes"; Abir, leaves 42–43. Reported at second hand; the original has not been seen. ↩

  14. Roy, "Avijit in His Father's Eyes"; Roy, Je alo choriye gelo sobokhane, leaves 25–26. ↩

  15. Roy, Je alo choriye gelo sobokhane, leaves 25–26. ↩

  16. Roy, Je alo choriye gelo sobokhane, leaves 26–27. ↩

  17. Roy, "Avijit in His Father's Eyes"; Mukto-Mona, From Nothing to the Universe. ↩

  18. Ahmed, "Fighting Machetes with Pens" (2015), para. 7; Avijit Roy, blog post for Blasphemy Day 2013, Mukto-Mona English blog, 6 Oct 2013 (texts/mm-birthday-2013.txt); Bengali original 30 Sept 2013 (mm-blasphemy-day-2013-bn.txt); Mukto-Mona, From Nothing to the Universe; BBC News, "US-Bangladesh blogger Avijit Roy hacked to death", 27 Feb 2015 (texts/bbc-2015-02-27.txt); Wikipedia, "Avijit Roy". ↩

  19. Roy, "Avijit in His Father's Eyes"; Ahmed, "Fighting Machetes with Pens" (2015), para. 7; MM13. ↩

  20. Trisha Ahmed and Avijit Roy, "Freethought Under Attack in Bangladesh", Free Inquiry vol. 33 no. 6 (Oct/Nov 2013), web version 8 Oct 2013 (Wayback of secularhumanism.org; texts/freethought-under-attack.txt); Avijit Roy, "The Struggle of Bangladeshi Bloggers", eSkeptic, 8 May 2013,; MM13. ↩

  21. Ahmed, Free Inquiry, author note; Avijit Roy, "The Virus of Faith", Free Inquiry, April/May 2015, pp. 59–62 (CFI PDF via Wayback; texts/free-inquiry.pdf, free-inquiry-tidy.txt), author note; Roy, eSkeptic. ↩

  22. Ahmed, "Fighting Machetes with Pens" (2015), paras. 7, 9; Roy, Je alo choriye gelo sobokhane, leaf 27; Subramanian, New Yorker. ↩

  23. Ahmed, "Fighting Machetes with Pens" (2015), para. 9. ↩

  24. Roy, Je alo choriye gelo sobokhane, leaf 27; Roy, "Avijit in His Father's Eyes"; Subramanian, New Yorker. ↩

  25. Subramanian, New Yorker; Roy, "Avijit in His Father's Eyes"; Avijit Roy, Biswasher Virus (The Virus of Faith), Jagriti Prakashani, 1st ed. Feb 2014, 2nd ed. June 2014; the free "Station e-book", 3rd e-book printing Nov 2016, IA biswasher-virus-avijit-roy, text texts/biswasher-virus.txt and .djvu.xml; cited by leaf = printed page (the preface to the 2nd edition is leaves 6–17, signed 18 May 2014). A second scan (texts/biswasher-virus-bn2.txt, IA Avijit-roy-books) is the same text. Bengali read by hand from the OCR, leaf 195; Wikipedia, "Avijit Roy". ↩

  26. Avijit Roy and Raihan Abir, Obiswasher Dorshon (The Philosophy of Disbelief), Shuddhashar, Feb 2011; 2nd ed. Feb 2012; e-book Mar 2012; IA Avijit-roy-books, texts/obiswasher-dorshon.txt and .djvu.xml. Cited by scan leaf, leaf 9. ↩

  27. Roy, Obiswasher Dorshon, chapter "If atheism is also a religion (belief)". ↩

  28. Ahmed, "Fighting Machetes with Pens" (2015), paras. 21–23; Ahmed, Free Inquiry; US Department of State, 2013 Report on International Religious Freedom: Bangladesh, 28 July 2014 (Wayback copy of 2009-2017.state.gov/j/drl/rls/irf/2013/sca/222325.htm). texts/state-irf-2013-bangladesh.txt. US federal work. ↩ ↩2

  29. Hefazat-e-Islam, a coalition of madrasa teachers and students, demand 2 of 13, 6 April 2013: Hefazat-e-Islam, 13-point demand of 6 April 2013, as printed by SATP from the Daily Star (texts/hefazat-13-point.txt; SATP page says "All rights reserved"; short excerpt of a public political demand, flagged for David), (SATP, from the Daily Star). ↩

  30. Hefazat-e-Islam, demand 3 of 13, 6 April 2013: HeI. ↩

  31. HeI; Subramanian, New Yorker. ↩

  32. US State Department: State, 2013 Report on International Religious Freedom, Executive Summary / Government Practices (Wayback of 2009-2017.state.gov/j/drl/rls/irf/2013/sca/222325.htm). ↩

  33. The government regulator's stated reason, reported by the US State Department (the state's side of the 2013 arrests; the posts were by the four bloggers Roy campaigned for): State, 2013 Report on International Religious Freedom, Government Practices. ↩

  34. State, 2013 Report on International Religious Freedom; Subramanian, New Yorker. ↩

  35. Roy, Biswasher Virus, leaves 76–78; Ahmed, Free Inquiry; Roy, eSkeptic; Ahmed, "Fighting Machetes with Pens" (2015), para. 23. ↩

  36. Humanists UK, reporting the 2014 award: Humanists UK, 9 Aug 2014 (texts/bha-fea-2014.txt). Copyrighted. ↩

  37. BHA (2014). ↩

  38. Roy, Biswasher Virus, leaves 4, 16, 18–19. ↩

  39. Roy, Biswasher Virus, leaves 3, 8, 17; Roy, Free Inquiry, p. 59. ↩ ↩2

  40. Roy, Free Inquiry, pp. 59–62. ↩

  41. Grd15b; Subramanian, New Yorker. ↩

  42. Roy, Biswasher Virus, leaf 10; Roy, Free Inquiry, pp. 61–62. ↩

  43. Roy, Biswasher Virus, leaves 8, 10; Roy, Free Inquiry, p. 59; Grd15b; Subramanian, New Yorker; News, "US-Bangladesh blogger Avijit Roy hacked to death". ↩

  44. Mukto-Mona, "Avijit Roy's 44th Birthday", facebook page; Mukto-Mona, "Avijit Roy's 44th Birthday", quotes page; Ahmed, "Fighting Machetes with Pens" (2015), paras. 10, 12–13; News, "US-Bangladesh blogger Avijit Roy hacked to death". ↩

  45. Mukto-Mona, "Avijit Roy's 44th Birthday", captions; Roy, Je alo choriye gelo sobokhane, -volume leaf 31. ↩

  46. Reps. Honda, Royce, Engel, Meng, Chabot, Bera, in their letter to Secretary Kerry: Press release of Rep. Eliot Engel's office, 2 Mar 2015, quoting the members' letter to Secretary Kerry. texts/house-letter-2015-03-02.txt. Flag: page footer says "All rights reserved"; treat as public domain under 17 U.S.C. 105 but confirm. Full letter not seen, press release 2 Mar 2015 (quoting the letter). ↩

  47. House. ↩

  48. US State Department: State, Rewards for Justice – Reward…. ↩

  49. US State Department, Office of the Spokesperson: State, Rewards for Justice – Reward…, 20 Dec 2021. ↩

  50. State, Rewards for Justice – Reward…. ↩

  51. State, Rewards for Justice – Reward…. ↩

  52. Star, [DS21b]; DS21b; TBS21; Benar21; BBC21. ↩

  53. Star, [DS21b]; DS21b; TBS21; Benar21. ↩ ↩2

  54. DS21b; TBS21; Grd22. ↩

Sources cited in the notes: US Department of State, Daily Press Briefing, February 27, 2015. texts/state-dpb-2015-02-27.txt.; Rafida Bonya Ahmed, "Fighting Machetes with Pens", Voltaire Lecture, Hilton Metropole, London, 2 July 2015; transcript at.; Samanth Subramanian, "The Hit List", The New Yorker, 21 Dec 2015 (texts/newyorker-hit-list.txt). Copyrighted.; US Department of State, Rewards for Justice – Reward Offer ... Murder of Avijit Roy and Attack on Rafida Bonya Ahmed, 20 Dec 2021. texts/state-rfj-2021-12.txt.; Daily Star, "Avijit murder: 5 get death penalty, one life term", 16 Feb 2021; [DS21b] Daily Star, "He was killed to gag free speech", 17 Feb 2021 (texts/dailystar-verdict-2021.txt, dailystar-gag-2021.txt). These report the judge's observations and the judgment's account of the plot; the judgment itself was not found online.; The Business Standard, 16 Feb 2021; [Benar21] BenarNews, 16 Feb 2021; [BBC21] BBC News, Feb 2021; [Grd22] Guardian, 21 Nov 2022 (texts/tbs-verdict-2021.txt, benar-verdict-2021.txt, bbc-verdict-2021.txt, guardian-2022-11-21.txt).; Agence France-Presse, "American atheist blogger hacked to death in Bangladesh", Guardian, 27 Feb 2015; [Grd15b] "Avijit Roy, the blogger who wouldn't back down in the face of threats", Guardian, 27 Feb 2015 (texts/guardian-2015-02-27.txt, guardian-farabi-2015-02-27.txt).; Ajoy Roy, "Avijit in His Father's Eyes", in Mukto-Mona's 44th-birthday page, 12 Sept 2015,.; Mukto-Mona, "Avijit Roy's Life and Work" (English and Bengali, texts/mm-biography.txt, mm-biography-bn.txt), giving Roy's two paragraphs about himself from From Nothing to the Universe (Shunyo theke Mohabishwa); also "Avijit Roy's Quotes" and "Quotes from Facebook" pages (texts/mm-quotes.txt, mm-facebook.txt).; Mukto-Mona, "Avijit Roy's 44th Birthday" page (texts/mm-avijit-en.txt). Copyrighted.; English Wikipedia, "Avijit Roy"; "Ajoy Roy"; "Attacks on secularists in Bangladesh". A map. Several of its birth details (1972, Dhaka birthplace) are contradicted by the father's essay [30].; Raihan Abir (per the contents list), "Tomar aloy moshal hate aj amra sobai Avijit", same e-book, leaves 41–43; copyrighted. Quotes Roy's memoir.; Anujit Roy, "Ekjon spashtobhashi, sochchar juboker kotha" (A plain-spoken, vocal young man), in Je alo choriye gelo sobokhane (Mukto-Mona e-book, 12 Sept 2016; IA Avijit-roy-books, texts/je-alo.txt, je-alo.djvu.xml), scan leaves 24–29. The younger brother; copyrighted.; Avijit Roy, blog post for Blasphemy Day 2013, Mukto-Mona English blog, 6 Oct 2013 (texts/mm-birthday-2013.txt); Bengali original 30 Sept 2013 (mm-blasphemy-day-2013-bn.txt).; BBC News, "US-Bangladesh blogger Avijit Roy hacked to death", 27 Feb 2015 (texts/bbc-2015-02-27.txt).; Trisha Ahmed and Avijit Roy, "Freethought Under Attack in Bangladesh", Free Inquiry vol. 33 no. 6 (Oct/Nov 2013), web version 8 Oct 2013 (Wayback of secularhumanism.org; texts/freethought-under-attack.txt).; Avijit Roy, "The Struggle of Bangladeshi Bloggers", eSkeptic, 8 May 2013,.; Avijit Roy, "The Virus of Faith", Free Inquiry, April/May 2015, pp. 59–62 (CFI PDF via Wayback; texts/free-inquiry.pdf, free-inquiry-tidy.txt).; Avijit Roy, Biswasher Virus (The Virus of Faith), Jagriti Prakashani, 1st ed. Feb 2014, 2nd ed. June 2014; the free "Station e-book", 3rd e-book printing Nov 2016, IA biswasher-virus-avijit-roy, text texts/biswasher-virus.txt and .djvu.xml; cited by leaf = printed page (the preface to the 2nd edition is leaves 6–17, signed 18 May 2014). A second scan (texts/biswasher-virus-bn2.txt, IA Avijit-roy-books) is the same text. Bengali read by hand from the OCR.; Avijit Roy and Raihan Abir, Obiswasher Dorshon (The Philosophy of Disbelief), Shuddhashar, Feb 2011; 2nd ed. Feb 2012; e-book Mar 2012; IA Avijit-roy-books, texts/obiswasher-dorshon.txt and .djvu.xml. Cited by scan leaf.; US Department of State, 2013 Report on International Religious Freedom: Bangladesh, 28 July 2014 (Wayback copy of 2009-2017.state.gov/j/drl/rls/irf/2013/sca/222325.htm). texts/state-irf-2013-bangladesh.txt. US federal work.; Hefazat-e-Islam, 13-point demand of 6 April 2013, as printed by SATP from the Daily Star (texts/hefazat-13-point.txt; SATP page says "All rights reserved"; short excerpt of a public political demand, flagged for David).; Humanists UK, 9 Aug 2014 (texts/bha-fea-2014.txt). Copyrighted.; Press release of Rep. Eliot Engel's office, 2 Mar 2015, quoting the members' letter to Secretary Kerry. texts/house-letter-2015-03-02.txt. Flag: page footer says "All rights reserved"; treat as public domain under 17 U.S.C. 105 but confirm. Full letter not seen.

In their own words

On Bangladesh, the United States condemns in the strongest terms the brutal murder of Avijit Roy, which was horrific in its brutality and cowardice.

Jen Psaki, State Department spokesperson · Psaki, Daily Press Briefing 27 Feb 2015, opening remarks

Avijit was a journalist, a humanist, a husband, and a friend, and we extend our condolences to his family and friends.

Jen Psaki · Psaki, 27 Feb 2015

This was not just an attack against a person, but a cowardly assault on the universal principles enshrined in Bangladesh's constitution and the country's proud tradition of free intellectual and religious discourse.

Jen Psaki · Psaki, 27 Feb 2015

don't have anything to ascribe in terms of a motive in this case.

Jen Psaki, answering a reporter · Psaki, 27 Feb 2015, Q&A

deeply troubled by the brutal public murder of American writer Dr. Avijit Roy.

Reps. Honda, Royce, Engel, Meng, Chabot, Bera, in their letter to Secretary Kerry · House, press release 2 Mar 2015 (quoting the letter)

The United States cannot allow extremists to operate with impunity. We must stand strong for freedom of speech and freedom of thought.

same letter · House

The brutal murder of Dr. Avijit Roy is yet another reminder of the threat posed by Islamist terrorists

Rep. Ed Royce, Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee · House

The Secretary of State has authorized a reward of up to $5 million for information leading to the arrest or conviction in any country of anyone involved in the murder of Roy and the attack on Ahmed.

US State Department, Office of the Spokesperson · RFJ, 20 Dec 2021

A total of six individuals were charged, tried, and convicted in Bangladesh.

US State Department · RFJ

Ansarullah Bangla Team, an al-Qa'ida-inspired terrorist group based in Bangladesh, claimed responsibility for the attack.

US State Department · RFJ

on behalf of fellow atheist bloggers, including Rasel Parvez, Subrata Adhikari Shuvo, Avijit Roy, and Mashiur Rahman Biplob.

Humanists UK, reporting the 2014 award · BHA 2014

In April the Dhaka police arrested bloggers for publishing posts "attack[ing] Islam and Hinduism" and seized their computers, modems, and external hard drives.

US State Department · IRF13, Executive Summary / Government Practices (Wayback of 2009-2017.state.gov/j/drl/rls/irf/2013/sca/222325.htm)

The other side

The Bangladesh Telecommunications and Radio Commission announced April 4 it had removed most of the posts from two blog platforms (somewhereinblog.net and amarblog.com) for defaming Islam and the Prophet Muhammad.

The government regulator's stated reason, reported by the US State Department (the state's side of the 2013 arrests; the posts were by the four bloggers Roy campaigned for) · IRF13, Government Practices

Pass a law providing for capital punishment for maligning Allah, Islam and Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) and smear campaigns against Muslims

Hefazat-e-Islam, a coalition of madrasa teachers and students, demand 2 of 13, 6 April 2013 · HeI (SATP, from the Daily Star)

Stop all propaganda and "derogatory comments" about Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) by the "atheist leaders" of the Shahbagh movement, bloggers and other anti-Islamists; arrest them and ensure stern punishment to them

Hefazat-e-Islam, demand 3 of 13, 6 April 2013 · HeI

Where accounts differ

PointOne accountAnotherHow the page handles it
Birth year and birthplace12 Sept 1972, Dhaka (Wikipedia; matriculation certificate per Ajoy; the roster; State/press ages "42")12 Sept 1971, Nazira, Assam, by his birth certificate (his father; Mukto-Mona "1971–2015", "died at 43"; Bengali Wikipedia and the Mukto-Mona bio)Say "born in September 1971, as his father recalls from the birth certificate; school papers say 1972". The 1971 date fits the war story the father tells
Founding of Mukto-MonaRoy, his widow and Mukto-Mona: he created it in 2001; BBC: 2000His father: he started a small site, Mukynwesa, in 2000 and handed it over; Avijit renamed it Mukto-mona in 2001Use "in 2001 he created, or renamed and took over, Mukto-Mona"; do not say "founded in 2000"
First contact with RafidaHer lecture: 2002His brother: probably October 2001; New Yorker: 2001Say "in the early years of Mukto-Mona"
Move to the United StatesNew Yorker and Wikipedia: 2006His father: 2007; Roy: in America by the time of a 2008 news eventSay "between 2006 and 2008, sources differ"
When he went to SingaporeHis brother: 26 Dec 1998 (MSc)His father: "probably in 2001" (NUS, with his first wife)Say he went in 1998 for a master's and stayed for a doctorate (his brother's date; the father's 2001 may be the PhD)
Date of arrival in Dhaka16 Feb 2015 (Ahmed lecture, ten days before the attack per his father)15 Feb 2015 (Guardian, 2 Mar 2015)Say "in mid-February"
Hour of birthFather: 11:42 amBengali tribute: 12:42Not narrated
Who claimed the killingAnsarullah Bangla Team (State, 2021); the tweet of Ansar Bangla Seven the next day (Guardian)AQIS's Asim Umar claimed AQIS followers were responsible (State, 2021)Narrate as claims
Name of the group"Ansar al-Islam", also known as Ansarullah Bangla Team (Bangladeshi press, BBC)"Ansarullah Bangla Team" (State, Guardian)Say "the banned group Ansar al-Islam, formerly Ansarullah Bangla Team"
Police behaviour at the scenePolice stood by (Ahmed; New Yorker repeats her account)Bangladeshi official account not foundAttribute to Ms Ahmed
Motive"Don't have anything to ascribe in terms of a motive" (State, 27 Feb 2015)The judge: killed "to gag and discourage freedom of expression", because they branded him an atheist (Daily Star report of the 2021 judgment)Narrate the court's finding as reported, attributed to the court
Date of Farabi's last threatRoy: the threats began at the start of 2014; mid-March the Rokomari attack callGuardian: BDNews24 reported the "will be murdered when he comes back" post in December (2014)Say "in 2014" and do not date the post
Number of books"Seven" (2013 bios), "eight" (Free Inquiry 2015)"Ten" written and edited (Mukto-Mona, his father)Say "about ten, counting the ones he edited"
Who escaped in 2022Guardian: Moinul Hasan Shamim and Abu Siddiq Sohel, both said to be convicted of Roy's murderDaily Star's list of Roy's convicts has Sohel but not Shamim (Shamim was in the Dipan case)Say "two men on death row for the group's killings" or leave out
Trial length31 working days (DS21a)32 working days (DS21b)Not narrated

List of illustrations

This page uses only public-domain and Creative Commons images; each is credited with its source and licence.

  1. TSC, University of Dhaka (Teacher-Student Centre) — Aashaa, 2015-03-14 · Aashaa, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0, web only, not for the book) · CC BY-SA 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0), as stated on the Commons file page
  2. Curzon Hall, northern facade, University of Dhaka — Biswarup Ganguly, 2015-05-31 · Biswarup Ganguly, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 3.0) · CC BY 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), as stated on the Commons file page
  3. Sabekunnahar Sony Memorial Sculpture, BUET campus — Ragib Hasan (User:Ragib), 2006-12-23 · Ragib Hasan (User:Ragib), via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.5) · CC BY 2.5 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.5), as stated on the Commons file page
  4. Lower Kent Ridge Road, Kent Ridge Campus, National University of Singapore — alex.ch., 2007-01-25 · alex.ch., via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0) · CC BY 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), as stated on the Commons file page
  5. Atlanta Skyline from Mableton — brandon walker, 2015-11-14 · brandon walker, via Wikimedia Commons (CC0) · CC0 (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/deed.en), as stated on the Commons file page
  6. Shahbag Circle (Projanmo Chattar), Dhaka, during the 2013 Shahbag protest — Nasir Khan Saikat, 2013-02-14 · Nasir Khan Saikat, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0, web only, not for the book) · CC BY-SA 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0), as stated on the Commons file page
  7. Anti-Terrorism Raju Memorial Sculpture, University of Dhaka campus — Biswarup Ganguly, 2015-05-31 · Biswarup Ganguly, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 3.0) · CC BY 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), as stated on the Commons file page
  8. Bangladesh's Fracture: Political and Religious Extremism, hearing title page — US House of Representatives, Committee on Foreign Affairs, 2015-04-30 · US House of Representatives, Committee on Foreign Affairs, Subcommittee on Asia and the Pacific, hearing 'Bangladesh's Fracture: Political and Religious Extremism', 30 April 2015, Serial No. 114-46 (US Government Publishing Office), via the Internet Archive · Public domain: US federal government work (House Committee on Foreign Affairs hearing, GPO). Internet Archive rights field: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/publicdomain/
  9. Hearing transcript p. 51: Alyssa Ayres statement naming Avijit Roy — US House of Representatives, Committee on Foreign Affairs, 2015-04-30 · US House of Representatives, Committee on Foreign Affairs, Subcommittee on Asia and the Pacific, hearing 'Bangladesh's Fracture: Political and Religious Extremism', 30 April 2015, Serial No. 114-46 (US Government Publishing Office), via the Internet Archive · Public domain: US federal government work (House Committee on Foreign Affairs hearing, GPO). Internet Archive rights field: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/publicdomain/

Sources

Tier 1 — the subject's own words (writings, letters, diaries, trial records)

  • [BV] Avijit Roy, Biswasher Virus (The Virus of Faith), Jagriti Prakashani, 1st ed. Feb 2014, 2nd ed. June 2014; the free "Station e-book", 3rd e-book printing Nov 2016, IA biswasher-virus-avijit-roy, text texts/biswasher-virus.txt and .djvu.xml; cited by leaf = printed page (the preface to the 2nd edition is leaves 6–17, signed 18 May 2014). A second scan (texts/biswasher-virus-bn2.txt, IA Avijit-roy-books) is the same text. Bengali read by hand from the OCR.
  • [OD] Avijit Roy and Raihan Abir, Obiswasher Dorshon (The Philosophy of Disbelief), Shuddhashar, Feb 2011; 2nd ed. Feb 2012; e-book Mar 2012; IA Avijit-roy-books, texts/obiswasher-dorshon.txt and .djvu.xml. Cited by scan leaf.
  • [FI15] Avijit Roy, "The Virus of Faith", Free Inquiry, April/May 2015, pp. 59–62 (CFI PDF via Wayback; texts/free-inquiry.pdf, free-inquiry-tidy.txt).
  • [FI13] Trisha Ahmed and Avijit Roy, "Freethought Under Attack in Bangladesh", Free Inquiry vol. 33 no. 6 (Oct/Nov 2013), web version 8 Oct 2013 (Wayback of secularhumanism.org; texts/freethought-under-attack.txt).
  • [eSk] Avijit Roy, "The Struggle of Bangladeshi Bloggers", eSkeptic, 8 May 2013, http://www.skeptic.com/eskeptic/13-05-08/ (texts/eskeptic.txt).
  • [MMbio] Mukto-Mona, "Avijit Roy's Life and Work" (English and Bengali, texts/mm-biography.txt, mm-biography-bn.txt), giving Roy's two paragraphs about himself from From Nothing to the Universe (Shunyo theke Mohabishwa); also "Avijit Roy's Quotes" and "Quotes from Facebook" pages (texts/mm-quotes.txt, mm-facebook.txt).
  • [MM13] Avijit Roy, blog post for Blasphemy Day 2013, Mukto-Mona English blog, 6 Oct 2013 (texts/mm-birthday-2013.txt); Bengali original 30 Sept 2013 (mm-blasphemy-day-2013-bn.txt).
  • Not found: any lawful, openly licensed text of Roy's own; no memoir text of his on childhood was reached (the passages quoted by Ajoy Roy and Raihan Abir are from it; the original was not located).

Tier 2 — official records and reference (US federal works are public domain)

  • [Psaki] US Department of State, Daily Press Briefing, February 27, 2015. texts/state-dpb-2015-02-27.txt.
  • [RFJ] US Department of State, Rewards for Justice – Reward Offer ... Murder of Avijit Roy and Attack on Rafida Bonya Ahmed, 20 Dec 2021. texts/state-rfj-2021-12.txt.
  • [House] Press release of Rep. Eliot Engel's office, 2 Mar 2015, quoting the members' letter to Secretary Kerry. texts/house-letter-2015-03-02.txt. Flag: page footer says "All rights reserved"; treat as public domain under 17 U.S.C. 105 but confirm. Full letter not seen.
  • [IRF13] US Department of State, 2013 Report on International Religious Freedom: Bangladesh, 28 July 2014 (Wayback copy of 2009-2017.state.gov/j/drl/rls/irf/2013/sca/222325.htm). texts/state-irf-2013-bangladesh.txt. US federal work.

Tier 3 — popular biographies, family tributes and journalism

  • [Ajoy] Ajoy Roy, "Avijit in His Father's Eyes", in Mukto-Mona's 44th-birthday page, 12 Sept 2015, https://mm-home3.azurewebsites.net/avijit/birthday-2015-en.php (texts/mm-birthday-2015.txt). The father's own account, written at 80, with two passages quoted from his son's memoir. Copyrighted; paraphrase.
  • [Anujit] Anujit Roy, "Ekjon spashtobhashi, sochchar juboker kotha" (A plain-spoken, vocal young man), in Je alo choriye gelo sobokhane (Mukto-Mona e-book, 12 Sept 2016; IA Avijit-roy-books, texts/je-alo.txt, je-alo.djvu.xml), scan leaves 24–29. The younger brother; copyrighted.
  • [Abir] Raihan Abir (per the contents list), "Tomar aloy moshal hate aj amra sobai Avijit", same e-book, leaves 41–43; copyrighted. Quotes Roy's memoir.
  • [Ahmed 2015] Rafida Bonya Ahmed, "Fighting Machetes with Pens", Voltaire Lecture, Hilton Metropole, London, 2 July 2015; transcript at https://humanism.org.uk/fighting-machetes-with-pens-a-full-transcript-of-the-2015-voltaire-lecture/ (texts/voltaire-lecture-2015.txt). Cited by paragraph. Copyrighted.
  • [BHA 2014] Humanists UK, 9 Aug 2014 (texts/bha-fea-2014.txt). Copyrighted.
  • [MM] Mukto-Mona, "Avijit Roy's 44th Birthday" page (texts/mm-avijit-en.txt). Copyrighted.
  • [NYer] Samanth Subramanian, "The Hit List", The New Yorker, 21 Dec 2015 (texts/newyorker-hit-list.txt). Copyrighted.
  • [Grd15a] Agence France-Presse, "American atheist blogger hacked to death in Bangladesh", Guardian, 27 Feb 2015; [Grd15b] "Avijit Roy, the blogger who wouldn't back down in the face of threats", Guardian, 27 Feb 2015 (texts/guardian-2015-02-27.txt, guardian-farabi-2015-02-27.txt).
  • [Grd15c] "Bangladesh authorities arrest man over atheist blogger's murder", Guardian, 2 Mar 2015 (texts/guardian-arrest-2015-03-02.txt).
  • [BBC15] BBC News, "US-Bangladesh blogger Avijit Roy hacked to death", 27 Feb 2015 (texts/bbc-2015-02-27.txt).
  • [DS21a] Daily Star, "Avijit murder: 5 get death penalty, one life term", 16 Feb 2021; [DS21b] Daily Star, "He was killed to gag free speech", 17 Feb 2021 (texts/dailystar-verdict-2021.txt, dailystar-gag-2021.txt). These report the judge's observations and the judgment's account of the plot; the judgment itself was not found online.
  • [TBS21] The Business Standard, 16 Feb 2021; [Benar21] BenarNews, 16 Feb 2021; [BBC21] BBC News, Feb 2021; [Grd22] Guardian, 21 Nov 2022 (texts/tbs-verdict-2021.txt, benar-verdict-2021.txt, bbc-verdict-2021.txt, guardian-2022-11-21.txt).

Tier 4 — maps to other sources only (Wikipedia and similar). Never cited in the script.

  • [Wiki] English Wikipedia, "Avijit Roy"; "Ajoy Roy"; "Attacks on secularists in Bangladesh". A map. Several of its birth details (1972, Dhaka birthplace) are contradicted by the father's essay [30].
  • Commons: video "Rafida Ahmed, widow of Avijit Roy, with a message for American Atheists" (American Atheists, 11 May 2015, CC BY 3.0). Needs a human transcription.

Opposition sources — contemporary critics and religious responses

  • [HeI] Hefazat-e-Islam, 13-point demand of 6 April 2013, as printed by SATP from the Daily Star (texts/hefazat-13-point.txt; SATP page says "All rights reserved"; short excerpt of a public political demand, flagged for David).
  • [IRF13] the Bangladesh Telecommunications and Radio Commission's stated reason for removing the bloggers' posts, as reported by State (public domain).
  • Also in the press, copyrighted: Information Minister Inu in [NYer] (some bloggers were guilty "of using very filthy language against Prophet Muhammad"; the state had a duty to prosecute those who offended the sentiments of the faithful); Article 19's Tahmina Rahman in [NYer] (like most Muslims, disapproved of "the most outrageous of the pieces" yet criticised the government); Farabi's Facebook threats as quoted in [FI15] and [BV].