Dissident Spotlight: Xulhaz Mannan
Xulhaz Mannan fought for a secular government reminiscent of the Enlightenment. He was killed by religious extremists on the opposite side.

Bangladesh has come a long way since it separated from Pakistan in 1971. Upon its independence, 80% of Bangladesh’s population lived below the poverty line. Someone born in Bangladesh was likely to live until their late 40s. Today, only 5% of Bangladesh's citizens live in extreme poverty, and the country’s average life expectancy is in the mid-70s.
Bangladesh made this transformation because of the leaders who chose to modernize. However, the government was also wracked by pressure from extreme Islamist groups. Islamists want to impose their version of Islam through state institutions. Christian nationalists are a rough parallel.
Xulhaz Mannan was at the center of the conflict between medieval religious ideas and modern secular government. He was a gay rights activist who founded a magazine for gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender issues. That magazine brought him into a deadly centuries-long conflict.
LGBT Rights and Freedom of Thought
In the mid-2010s, Bangladesh suffered a wave of violence against religious skeptics, progressives, and other groups who trespassed against a militant interpretation of Islam. It took about three years to uncover the full plot.
The killings began with a blogger who criticized religious fundamentalism. Islamist groups organized to kill Ahmed Rajib Haider in February 2013. Many more killings in which attackers would kill their targets with machetes then flee on motorcycles followed. It would take years for Bangladeshi authorities to track down the leaders of the groups who committed these atrocities to end the violence.
Mannan’s murder occurred near the end of this period of violence. He had already launched his LGBT magazine and was receiving death threats from Islamist groups and criticism from his secular government. He had also come out as openly gay in the hopes that more gay Bangladeshis would follow, and Bangladeshi society would come around to gay people living alongside them.
Instead, he and a friend were killed on April 25, 2016 in Mannon’s apartment.
Ordinary People Fight for Enlightenment Values
Bangladesh’s government sought the people responsible for Mannan’s murder. In 2021, six people were sentenced to death for it.
However, the secular government hasn’t been able to defend its own values the way its writers have. The government has called on writers to not offend Islam, as if the most extreme groups are better representatives of their religion than its dissidents.
Xulhaz Mannan didn’t compromise his values like his government did theirs. He lived openly as he was and created a space for others to see themselves in a society hostile to them.
It’s not fair that writers and ordinary people end up doing the most to fight extremism. The people who bear the brunt of extremist violence are the ones who fit the extremists’ worldviews least. Dissidents don’t equivocate the way their governments often do. It makes them as formidable as they are vulnerable.
Bangladesh may have made great progress on quality of life and economic issues, but it can’t sustain those gains without a government that proactively embraces tolerance and an unequivocal commitment to creating space for every kind of good person to thrive.
Mannon may have been avenged, but as of August 2024, homosexuality remains a crime in Bangladesh.