On 4 April 2013 (07:00 GMT) all Bengali blogs were blacked out for an indefinite time to protest the arrest of four bloggers in Bangladesh (Moshiur Rahman Biplob, Rasel Parvez, Subrata Adhikari Shuvo and Asif Mohiuddin).[1] The blackout was to back a demand for the unconditional release of the arrested bloggers.[2] [3] A fundamentalist group named Hefajat-e-Islam Bangladesh started a campaign to hang freethinking bloggers, and demanding tough blasphemy laws.[4] In response, the government started monitoring Bengali blog sites and sending letters to their authorities to terminate the alleged "anti-religious" blogs and provide information about the alleged "anti-religious" bloggers.[5] Individual bloggers showed their solidarity with this blackout by changing their profile photos on Facebook and by tweeting with the #MuzzleMeNot hashtag. Different international organizations expressed deep concern about taking free-thinking bloggers into custody.[6] [7] [8] After 92 hours of blackout, blogs returned online by publishing a press release on their central Facebook page.[9]
From the beginning of the Shahbag protest, bloggers came out on the streets to demand capital punishment of Abdul Quader Molla, a war criminal of the Bangladesh liberation war and a leader of Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami. During the protests, a controversial author, pro-Shahbag blogger and online activist Sunnyur Rahman, popularly known as 'Nastik Nobi' (Atheist Prophet) in the blog community, was stabbed on 7 March 2013.[10] Another pro-Shahbag blogger Ahmed Rajib Haider who was critical of Jamaat-e-Islami, was killed by a few Jamaat activists.[11] [12] Afterwards, a Jamaat backed Islamic fundamentalist organisation started a violent protest demanding the death penalty for all allegedly "anti-Islamic" bloggers, and they termed all participants of the Shahbag movement as atheist.[13] The spokesperson of the Shahbag movement Imran H. Sharkar said, Hifazat-e-Islam is desperate to thwart the war crimes trial and the process of banning Jamaat-e-Islami.[14]
Afterwards, the government of Bangladesh started monitoring the blogosphere and sent letters to the Bengali blog authorities to terminate the alleged "anti-religious" blogs and to provide information about the alleged "anti-religious" bloggers.[15]
On the night of 1 April 2013, three bloggers were arrested by the detective branch (DB) police. Blogger Rasel Pervez, a prominent physicist and blogger and Mashiur Rahman Biplob were arrested on 1 April 2013 from their house. Subrata Adhikari Shuvo, who is a masters student of the Bengali department at the University of Dhaka, was also arrested on the same day from his university dormitory.[16]
Another blogger Asif Mohiuddin was called to the police station on 3 April 2013, and when he went there, he was arrested.[17] Earlier, the Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission forced the Bengali blog somewhereinblog.net to remove all writings[18] of Asif Mohiuddin.[19] The move was criticized by Human Rights Watch,[20] Amnesty International, Center for Inquiry, Reporters Without Borders, Committee to Protect Journalists, and several other bodies.[21]