অতিথি লেখক's blog

Article to be published in the dailies Prothom Khalo, Khaler Kontho, Samakhal, Drogantor

Recently I was watching a talk show and someone was saying,
'During Charlie Hebdo, thousands of people marched to defend their right to offend Muslims but no one raised their voice when their children were killed in Pakistan.'

I got brown skin. Milk-chocolate tone! During summer months, when I grill myself in bikini by the beach, my skin turns a few shades darker – quite close to dark chocolate. But that is today’s me, which is dramatically different from yesterday’s version, when I was being ruled by the ‘Fair & Lovely’ regime.

The recent slaughtering of secular bloggers in Bangladesh by the radical extremists who claims the killings are the way of Islam and the government's response to it has raised some serious questions about our democracy, freedom, security and the power of political Islam in our democratic politics. How free are we to say what we think and what we believe?

1. Why do Middle East get almost no attention for terrorist attacks while Paris attack swarms the social media?

(On last Friday night, Paris, the cultural center of Europe, was shaken by gunfire and suicide bombings of massive brutality at several locations. Officials confirmed that three teams of Islamic State attackers with assault rifles and suicide vests carried out the coordinated carnage. After the attack I followed the social and electronic media and saw how the whole world reacted to this incident.

To close to smell her breath
- Rownak Albab

[justify]I went so close that I could hear her breath, Knowing that it is the largest cat species and it probably weighted more than 93-310 kg and can run up to 49-65 km per hour.

It was about 10:30 pm. I reached Sana’a, the capital city of Yemen. The whole country is surrounded by hills. In Arabic, Yemen means South Arabia. It was the center of civilization and wealth on the Arabian Peninsula for centuries. That’s why the Romans referred to the area as "Happy Arabia".

Disclaimer: As international journalistic integrity and practice dictates, this rebuttal to Mr. Zafar Sobhan’s (editor of the Dhaka Tribune) writing was first sent to the Dhaka Tribune for publication. Mr. Sobhan held onto it for almost a week and then informed upon inquiry that they had no intention of publishing it. It was then sent to BDNews24.