The local LGBT community participating in a rainbow parade to celebrate the Bangla New Year. Image by Nahid Sultan via Wikimedia Commons. CC BY-SA 4.0 Just over a year ago, Xulhaz Mannan, the editor of Bangladesh's first LGBT magazine, and LGBT activist Mahbub Rabbi Tonoy were hacked to death in Bangladesh's capital Dhaka. On April 25, 2016, they joined the long list of secular thinkers and religious minorities who have been murdered in Bangladesh since 2013 (see Global Voices special coverage). Ansar al-Islam Bangladesh (Al-Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent) claimed responsibility for their murders in a tweet. The police have so far arrested two people in connection with the murders, but more than a year after the killings, investigators still have not issued charges against them. Advocates in South Asia and around the world contended that Mannan was a clear target for Islamist extremists because of the continued criminalization of homosexual relations and intolerance toward the LGBT community in Bangladesh. The Bangladesh penal code article 377 criminalises sexual activities “against the order of nature”, including consensual homosexual acts such as fellatio and anal penetration, with the most severe possible punishment being life in prison. The provision was introduced by British colonial authorities in the 19th century and was used as the model for sodomy laws in many other British colonies. On the first anniversary of the killings, Boys of Bangladesh, the largest network of self-identified Bangladeshi gay men from home and abroad, launched a Bangla-language blog called Dhee to commemorate the victims and raise awareness of the plight of the LGBT community in the conservative Muslim-majority nation. The literal meaning of “Dhee” in Bangla is talent or intelligence. The blog is part of a larger advocacy project for lesbians which includes a comic strip released in September 2015 that tells “The Story of Dhee,” a fictional young lesbian discovering her sexuality. Over the past year, the Dhee project has also hosted awareness events on gender and sexuality in seven towns in Bangladesh. The blog features pieces by members of the LGBT community remembering Mannan and Tonoy and explaining the fear they now live with since their deaths. The authors are kept anonymous, and even the email address of the commenters are withheld for safety reasons. A statement on the blog reads: জুলহাজ মান্নান ও তনয়ের নির্মম হত্যাকান্ডের ঘটনাটি ধী এর মত যাদের জীবনে প্রত্যক্ষ কিংবা পরোক্ষভাবে প্রভাব ফেলেছে তাদের বলা কিছু লেখা/কথা/ছবি/ভিডিও সংরক্ষণ করে রাখার প্রাথমিক উদ্দেশ্য নিয়ে এই কমিউনিটি ব্লগের যাত্রা শুরু হচ্ছে। আমাদের এই আহবানে সাড়া দিয়ে বিভিন্ন মানুষ, যারা নানা সময়ে জুলহাজ আর তনয়ের সান্নিধ্যে ছিলেন, তাদের লেখনী আলোকচিত্র দিয়ে জানিয়েছেন তাদের মনের অব্যক্ত সেসব কথা। বাংলাদেশের সমকামীদের আন্দোলনের বর্তমান পরিস্থিতির ঘোলাটে এক টুকরো ছবি মিলবে ধী ব্লগে। The brutal killings of Xulhaz Mannan and Mahbub Rabbi Tonoy have directly or indirectly affected a lot of activists and ordinary people. This blog archives their experience and comments in text/audio/images and video formats. Many people close to Mannan and Tonoy responded to our call to submit texts and images and expressed their feelings and memories about them. You can catch a glimpse of the current confused state of the LGBT movement in Bangladesh on Dhee blog. Xulhaz Mannan worked as a foreign service national for USAID in Bangladesh and was the co-founder and publisher of Bangladesh's first LGBT magazine Roopbaan (see Global Voices report). The magazine was launched in January 2014. Before the publication, the LGBT movement in Bangladesh was mostly underground and led by a handful of people who connected with each other on social media. Shakhawat Hossain of Boys of Bangladesh wrote on news and commentary site Wire.in: Mannan believed in visibility. All his life he worked to provide a safe space for people to come out and be who they were. He opened up his house, spent all his earnings and dedicated his spare time towards mobilising the community and giving us a sense of belonging. He had a unique way of encouraging us to speak up and be assertive of our rights – of our right to love. How ironical it is for the merchant of love to succumb to such hatred and violence. Tonoy used his theatre experience to produce and act in various short dramas to spread awareness about LGBT issues. Xulhaz and Tonoy. Images from their Facebook profiles.