Secular activists expressed outrage Monday after Bangladesh's national police chief warned bloggers they faced jail for posting material deemed offensive following last week's machete murder of a secular writer.
Inspector General of Police A.K.M. Shahidul Hoque warned bloggers in the officially secular but Muslim-majority country against hurting religious sentiments.
"No one should cross the limit," Hoque said on Sunday in comments to reporters carried in major newspapers on Monday.
"And for hurting someone's religious sentiment, the person will be punished by the law," Hoque said, adding that the maximum punishment is 14 years in jail.
A gang armed with machetes hacked to death Niloy Chakrabarti, who used the pen-name Niloy Neel, at his home on Friday, the fourth such murder in Bangladesh this year.
Activists accused the police chief of siding with the killers instead of better protecting bloggers who were living in fear. [Daily Mail] Read more
