Dressed in flowing white Islamic robes and wearing white caps or turbans, the marchers, who came from all over Bangladesh, gathered at Dhaka's Manik Miah Avenue next to the sprawling parliament building.
The protesters carried wooden sticks, placards and banners, one of which showed a portrait of Taslima Nasrin with a rope around her neck.
The march was organized by the United Action Council, which represents nearly a dozen radical Islamic groups, to press demands for Nasrin's death and the framing of a blasphemy law. United Action Council leader S.M. Sulaiman told the rally: "Unless the government accepts our demands soon we will turn the campaign against Taslima Nasrin and her murtad (renegade) friends into a movement for the ouster of the government."
Nasrin, a physician-turned-writer in her early 30s, became the target of Moslem fury in Bangladesh when she was quoted by India's Statesman newspaper as saying Islam's holy book, the Koran, should be revised thoroughly. She says she was misquoted, while the newspaper says it stands by its report.
Nasrin, now in hiding to avoid arrest and possible death threatened by the militants, has said in the past that Islam treats women as slaves and that marriage is nothing but slavery for women.
Bangladesh's Attorney General, Aminul Huq, has warned that creating a blasphemy law as suggested by Islamic fundamentalists would only curtail human rights.
Criticizing the proponents of a blasphemy law, Huq said: "They want to push us back to the feudal age. But those who are demanding a blasphemy law are living in a fool's paradise."
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