The rally was organized by Roopbaan, an LGBT magazine that Mr Mannan helped to edit.
Advertisement
A man holds a portrait of Bangladeshi professor Rezaul Karim Siddique, who was hacked to death in Rajshahi, on April 23, 2016 ©Md. His friend, actor Mahbub Rabbi Tonoy, 25, was killed in the same attack, according to police. Both men were openly gay and were leading activist in the LGBT community.
“I am devastated by the brutal murder of Xulhaz Mannan and another young Bangladeshi this evening in Dhaka”, Ambassador Marcia Bernicat said in a statement.
A spokesman for the White House’s National Security Council, Ned Price, said the United States strongly urged the Bangladeshi government to ensure the perpetrators were brought to justice.
State Department spokesman John Kirby said that remained an option, while describing Mr Mannan as a “beloved member of our embassy family and a courageous advocate” for gay rights, and pledging U.S. support to Bangladeshi authorities “to ensure that the cowards who did this are held accountable”. Homosexuality is technically still illegal in Bangladesh and remains a highly sensitive issue there.
The Al-Qaeda in the Indian Sub continent (AQIS) has claimed responsibility for killing the duo, saying that the two were because they were “pioneers of promoting and practicing homosexuality”. The killings-sometimes claimed by al Qaeda and sometimes by ISIS affiliates-illustrate a culture of violence that Dhaka has been unable to rein in. “As a result of the detentions, Xulhaz and others were reluctant to go to the police and inform them of the threat to them”, the women’s rights campaigner said.
Mannan joined the U.S. Agency for International Development as an employee in Dhaka last year and had worked for the previous eight years at the U.S. Embassy. Witnesses told the website the attackers shouted “Allahu Akbar” and fired guns as they fled.
As pressure mounts on the government, rights groups said the latest killings and the murder on Saturday of a liberal university professor appeared to show the attackers were expanding their range of targets.
“Let Bangladesh revoke the citizenship of these enemies of Islam”, a statement accompanying the list says.
Advertisement
The country has been dealing with a long-running spate of murders of liberal, atheist, and secular bloggers by Islamist militants. Blogger Imran Sarker, who led major protests by secular activists in 2013 against Islamist leaders, said he had received a phone call on Sunday warning he would be killed “very soon”.
