Xulhaz Mannan, the founder and editor of Roopbaan, Bangladesh's first and only LGBTQ magazine, was hacked to death with a machete inside his apartment in Dhaka on April 25, 2016.
The group of assailants gained access to Mannan's first-floor apartment by posing as delivery drivers before killing him and activist Mahbub Rabbi Tonoy.
The militant group Ansar al-Islam, a Bangladeshi affiliate of al-Qaeda, claimed responsibility for the killings, which came amid a wave of machete attacks on secular writers, bloggers, and activists between 2013 and 2016
On August 31, 2021, Dhaka's Anti-Terrorism Special Tribunal sentenced six members of Ansar al-Islam to death for the murders and acquitted two others, finding that the militants killed the two men to suppress free expression. Two of the condemned, including alleged mastermind Syed Ziaul Haque, a sacked army major tried in absentia, were fugitives at the time of the verdict.
Mannan launched Roopbaan in 2014 to promote tolerance of LGBTQ people in Bangladesh, where same-sex relations are criminalized. He also helped organize Dhaka's annual “rainbow rally” and worked as a Foreign Service National for the U.S. Agency for International Development, having previously served as a protocol officer at the U.S. Embassy in Dhaka.
In the days before his death, Mannan received threatening phone calls and an Islamist Facebook page had issued direct threats against LGBTQ activists.
The death sentences require confirmation by the High Court, and CPJ was unable to confirm that the appellate review had concluded as of September 2026.
Bangladesh’s Ministry of Home Affairs did not immediately reply to CPJ’s request for comment.