Asif Mohiuddin
| Asif Mohiuddin | |||
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Asif Mohiuddin at the European Humanist Youth Days 2016 in Utrecht, Netherlands.
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| Born | 24 February 1984 Dhaka, Bangladesh |
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| Residence | Berlin, Germany | ||
| Nationality | Bangladeshi | ||
| Occupation | Secular activist | ||
| Awards | The Bobs-Best of Online Activism, Anna Politkovskaya Award for Journalism. | ||
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Asif Mohiuddin (born 24 February 1984) is a Bangladeshi ex-Muslim atheist and secular activist, religious critic and feminist. In 2012, he won The Bobs-Best of Online Activism award from Deutsche Welle, who stated that "Asif's blog was one of the most read web pages in Bangladesh and is known for its strong criticism of religious fundamentalism and Bangladesh's "anti-people politics". On 15 January 2013, he survived an assassination attempt by Islamic extremists. A few months later, he was imprisoned twice by the Bangladesh Government for posting "offensive comments about Islam and Mohammad". Due to sustained internationale pressure, Mohiuddin was released, after which he fled from his country to Germany in 2014. In 2015, he received the Anna Politkovskaya Award for Journalism.
Mohiuddin was born and raised a Muslim family in Dhaka as the son of a middle-ranking civil servant. Studying religion at the mosque after school, he said "I learned many ridiculous things – that I would get virgins in heaven, or that I would suffer the ultimate punishment in hell for eternity." To the grief of his parents, he increasingly questioned the religious doctrines he had been taught. Because of the critical questions and his irreverent answers towards the teachers, he was often hashly beaten up by them. At the age of 13, he declared himself an atheist.
Mohiuddin began to read about science, and from age 16 (2000) started to challenge allegedly unscientific claims made by Islamists by writing opinion pieces in Dhaka newspapers. This started when he read an article in a science magazine in Bengali that attempted to reconcile the miracles described in the Quran with modern science and in some way explain in a rational scientific manner. Mohiuddin wrote a contribution in response, claiming that it was scientifically impossible that the prophet Muhammad flew to heaven on a horse. This and other critical to ironic contributions in Bengali newspapers from Dhaka gave rise to his reputation as a freethinker and a critic of religion. It also brought him into contact with other similarly-minded online activists.
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