Bangladeshi atheist relocates to US after death threats

NEW YORK — An internationally renowned atheist activist has relocated from India to the United States after receiving death threats from an extremist group that has claimed responsibility for at least 1 of 3 machete killings of South Asian atheists in 2015.

Taslima Nasrin, a Bangladeshi gynecologist, novelist and poet, arrived in New York on May 27. The move was orchestrated by the Center for Inquiry, an organization that promotes secularism and has been working with atheist activists in countries where atheism is unprotected by blasphemy laws.

Nasrin, 52, is well-known among atheists in the U.S. and abroad. She rose to prominence in Bangladesh with the 1993 publication of her first novel, “Shame,” which detailed her country’s Muslim-Hindu tensions and argued against religion. It was banned in Bangladesh and Nasrin became the subject of a “fatwa” — an Islamic religious ruling — that called for her death for blasphemy. By 1994 she had to secretly leave Bangladesh for neighboring India.

While she has received threats in the past, her situation became more dangerous since the slaying of Avijit Roy, a Bangladesh-American atheist, in February. Roy was a popular and prominent atheist blogger and activist and a friend of Nasrin.