Avijit Roy
2022
Engineer · Blogger · Online Activist
While working as an engineer in the United States, Avijit created Mukto-Mona (“Free Mind” in Bengali) blog for freethinkers, atheists, and secularists in Bangladesh in 2001.
After earning a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering, and a doctoral degree in biomedical engineering, he moved to the United States in 2006 and became a US citizen. While here he authored eight books on topics from atheism to astrophysics, all in Bengali. He was also a fierce critic of the rampant illiteracy in South Asia.
"When people cannot read critical texts questioning this propaganda they are more easily deluded by preachers of hatred."
Resentment grew against Avijit, his website, and others like him. In 2013, Islamic political leaders distributed a list of 84 atheist authors and bloggers that violated the country’s new “blasphemy law.” As a result, four Bengalese authors were arrested, some harassed and targeted by protestors, and others were murdered. Blogs and websites that hosted their content were shut down.
Avijit responded by organizing multiple international protests against this censorship and is credited with capturing the attention of the Center for Inquiry and the International Humanist and Ethical Union.
In support of the arrested bloggers, he organized protests in Dhaka, New York City, Washington, D.C., London, Ottawa, and more.
“Our aim is to build a society which will not be bound by the dictates of arbitrary authority, comfortable superstition, stifling tradition, or suffocating orthodoxy but would rather be based on reason, compassion, humanity, equality and science.”
Avijit’s life was taken while visiting a book fair in Dhaka, where he and his wife were attacked. In an interview with BBC’s Newshour, local police officers observed the attack but did not respond. The following day, an Islamic Jihadi organization took credit for the attack – the same group responsible for the deaths of at least three other atheist bloggers and a professor. Of the assailants, four were arrested. In December 2021, the U.S. State Department announced a $5 million award for information that could lead to the arrest of the other two.
"To me, religious extremism is like a highly contagious virus. My own recent experiences in this regard verify the horrific reality that such religious extremism is a virus of faith."
His wife, Rafida Ahmed Bonya – who was also injured in the attack that killed Avijit – took over the daily operation of Mukto-Mona. Their daughter, Trisha, is a graduate student at the University of Maryland’s Philip Merrill College of Journalism.
Reflecting on his life, Hemant Mehta of The Friendly Atheist blog said:
“Avijit Roy was a freethought hero in every sense of the word. He spoke truth to power, even when he knew it would be difficult, and he was ultimately killed for the “crime” of spreading reason. His courage, and the continued efforts of his partner Rafida Bonya Ahmed, should never be forgotten.”