FASCISM IS ALWAYS DESCENDING ON THE UNITED STATES, BUT IT ALWAYS LANDS… ANYWHERE ELSE: In fear after attacks, gay Bangladeshis retreat into closet and flee abroad.

Seven months after al Qaeda-linked militants hacked Bangladesh’s most prominent gay activist to death, the South Asian country’s LGBT community remains in hiding, while more than a dozen LGBT people have fled abroad.

“The whole community has been sent back to the closet,” a gay activist in exile told the Thomson Reuters Foundation on condition of anonymity because he fears for his safety.

“Any kind of work – whatever we had been doing – it has been completely shut down. There is no movement, no visibility, no work. It is a horrible situation. We have never imagined the situation would be like this.”

Bangladesh’s lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community was already marginalized, with gay sex being illegal, punishable by a maximum of life in prison.