Published on Mar 30 2012 // Featured, World News

Saleem Samad – AHN News Correspondent

Dhaka, Bangladesh (AHN) – Police arrested two school teachers in southwest Bangladesh on Friday for blasphemy after radical Muslims held angry protests.

A group of Muslims and mullahs held noisy demonstrations after Jumma prayers on Friday, blocking roads for hours at Kaliganj, a small town in Satkhira district.

Police arrested Rezwan Harun, the headmaster of Fatehpur High School in Kaliganj, and the school’s assistant headmaster, Mita Rani Hazra.

The protestors demanded punishment of the teachers who organized a drama in the school that included derogatory remarks of the Prophet Muhammad, whom Muslims revere as the founder of Islam.

The drama was staged by school students Tuesday evening and was written and directed by the two teachers.

Bangladesh has an overwhelmingly Sunni Muslim population, with several Islamic political parties advocating for an Islamic state with strict Islamic Sharia laws.

Nothing is mentioned in the country’s constitution, but a law discourages blasphemy by a section that forbids “hurting religious sentiments.”

The Bangladesh High Court last week ordered that five Facebook pages and a website be blocked on the grounds they were “blasphemous.”

In January, a college head teacher in southern Bangladesh was arrested after a book, “Lajja,” written by self-exiled feminist writer Taslima Nasrin and considered blasphemous by some Muslims, was found in the school’s library.

Source: www.wall-street.com