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By Elizabeth Kendal
World Evangelical Alliance Religious Liberty Commission
Special to ASSIST News Service
AUSTRALIA (ANS) -- On 1 October 2001, as U.S. and coalition forces were assembling in
Pakistan in preparation for the bombing campaign in Afghanistan, Bangladeshis were heading
off to vote in their national elections.
A massive voter swing ousted the secular Awami League, which had, with the people’s
mandate, created the secular, democratic state of Bangladesh by securing independence from
Pakistan in 1971. Riding to victory on an enormous wave of Islamic fervor was the
pro-Pakistan, pro-Islam, Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP). Support also rose
dramatically for the pro-Shari’a, hardline Islamist Jama'at-e-Islami and Islami Oika
Jote parties, which now rule in coalition with the BNP.
The election result was a massive protest vote against the forthcoming action of the
coalition forces in what was being touted by Islamists as a “crusade against
Islam”. It was a vote for Muslim solidarity, and Bangladesh has not been the same
since.
This posting details the serious situation for religious minorities in Bangladesh today.
They are living in a state of terror amidst systematic, unrestrained persecution, as
Islamists extort, rape, torture and kill with impunity.
BANGLADESH: SYSTEMATIC PERSECUTION OF RELIGIOUS MINORITIES
The Guardian newspaper (UK) has published an article on the persecution of religious
minorities in Bangladesh. The article, entitled, “Rape and torture empties the
villages” by John Vidal (21 July 2003) can be found at
http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,1002200,00.html
Vidal reports, “Serious attacks on and persecution of religious minorities by Islamic
fundamentalists are increasing.” He continues, “Evidence is emerging that the
oppression of minorities is becoming systematic.”
Vidal quotes a leading Bangladesh lawyer as saying that the revival of fundamentalist
Islam “is like a silent revolution. We are returning,” he says, “to the
dark ages. I think the backdrop is being created for the introduction of strict sharia
laws. You see extremist rightwing fundamentalists infiltrating every professional area, in
the appointment of the judiciary, the law, medicine and in education. They are capturing
key positions in government, the universities and institutions.”
According to Vidal, a serious incident took place in the village of Fhainjana. “A mob
of 200 fundamentalists recently looted 10 Christian houses, allegedly assaulting many
women and children. Christians were seriously beaten and others molested after refusing to
give money to thugs in the village of Kamalapur, near Dhaka.”
Vidal reports that many villages are said to be now empty of minorities. One man tells
Vidal that all the Hindus have been driven out of his village of Sri Rumpur, near Khulna.
"They have all been driven out by people threatening to torture them or demanding
money,” he says. “People who raise their voices are threatened. It's a kind of
systematic ethnic cleansing.”
The article also expresses the great concern of one leading Islamic scholar. ‘What we
are seeing is the Talibanisation of Bangladesh, Maolama Abdul Awal, former director of the
Bangladesh Islamic Foundation, said. ‘If we allow them to continue ... [minorities]
will be eliminated. Bangladesh will become a fascist country’.”
EXCERPT FROM THE WEA UN REPORT (APRIL 2003)
Up to 50 Christian families in Chatiangacha village in the western district of Natore,
have been targeted for extortion. Reports in the daily 'Janakantha' newspaper of
Bangladesh suggest that Islamist fundamentalists are behind a series of incidents during
which men arrive on motorbikes and call out the family name of their victims. The family
is then usually given between a week and ten days to raise between £150 and £300 or the
daughter is forced to sleep with the men. The residents of Chatiangacha have complained to
Boraignam Jubodol, a right-wing Islamist group, but to no avail. Jimmy Koraiya, who lives
in the village, has been visited by the men on motorbikes who have called for his high
school-age daughter three times. “What kind of country is this?” he asks.
“If I can't give money, I have to give them my daughter.”
In Bonparha Market area, also in Natore district, religious minorities are forced to pay
huge fines to be released from false charges. The local BNP has also reportedly built a
torture chamber to make victims confess to false charges. Islamic fundamentalist groups
have used false papers to drive thousands of Hindus and Christians off their land. In the
south-eastern Chittagong division, 30 Hindu families have been evicted and one Hindu
killed. In other districts, minorities are forced to convert to Islam at knifepoint. Dr.
Deb Lal Dakua, a Hindu from Nazirpur in the southern Pirojpur district, was forcibly
circumcised on November 11 by a group of extremists. He was also told to pay £730 (INR
50,000) within seven days or face death. Minorities are concerned by the rise of Islamic
fundamentalism in Bangladesh. When the BNP was last in power, between 1991 and 1996, there
was considerable violence against religious minorities. During that time, the
Jama'at-e-Islami (JI) attempted to table a Blasphemy Bill, which was discriminatory
against religious minorities.
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