South Asia Citizens Web

this whole idea that women must conform to certain rules of dress and conduct — rules laid down by men — is so out of date that it is almost laughable. Yet it is relentlessly propagated — by families, by academic institutions, and often, by our astonishingly regressive politicians.

In her Pohela Boishakh address after Nazimuddin’s murder, the same prime minister who had so passionately showed solidarity with Rajib, secularism, and the oppressed secularists, chose to be on the wrong side of history.

Police in Bangladesh say two people including a leading gay rights activist and editor at Bangladesh’s only LGBT magazine have been hacked to death.

SIXTY-SIX years after adopting one of the world’s most liberal constitutions, India is being convulsed by a searing debate over a colonial-era provision in its penal code, Section 377, which criminalises “whoever voluntarily has carnal intercourse against the order of nature with any man, woman, or animal.” Though not widely used – there were 578 arrests under Section 377 last year – the law is a tool for the harassment, persecution, and blackmail of sexual minorities within India. It must be changed.

Editorials from three daily newspapers in Bangladesh. Fanatics are pursuing a single minded campaign to target secular writers and intellectuals for cold blooded murder in Bangladesh. And the government is failing to stop them.