Hindu Women Raped

The plight of the Hindu community of Bangladesh is disturbing. Regularly, one hears about attacks on Hindus and atrocities on women and children of Hindus. Temples and Hindu establishments also routinely face the brunt of extremists in Bangladesh. The role of the Bangladesh government has always been fishy. BNP or Awami League, it doesn’t really make much of a difference. The Hindu community of Bangladesh are apparently forced to live as second class citizens.

What is the reason for this? The rise of Islamic extremism has obviously led to the present scenario. But who are responsible for the rise of hardline islamics? The answer is—successive Bangladesh governments. They have forgotten the pillars on which the Bangla nation was formed. The ideology of those very extremists who supported Pakistan during the ’71 Liberation war is prospering. The secular, progressive credentials of Bangladesh have been long consigned to the dustbin of history. Politically, the situation is bound to worsen. Let Hindus not have any hope from the government.

Then what is the solution? Apparently, Hindus in Bangladesh face a problem; a problem of survival and life of safety, respect and dignity; and this problem needs a solution. The solution; or at least a step towards the solution; would be—Political empowerment.

The Hindus must aim to become a political force in the country. They must be united in quest of this goal. The community must vote for a consensus candidate and when Hindus are attacked or threatened, the community must hit the streets together. The Hindus must have no hesitation in becoming a “vote bank”. The Hindus must, as a primary goal, seek to make themselves relevant to the extent that they can influence 50-60 seats in the Jatiya Sangsad. Then and only then will their voice be heard loud and clear. And in these attempts, the Hindus must bring with them the other minorities of Bangladesh.

The future of Hindus is in the hands of the Hindus. Let us ensure that we decide our fate, not others.

Tags: extremism, fascism, hindu, islamic, rights, terrorism

Freedom of Religion

A Malaysian Muslim woman, named S. Banggarma (27), who was converted to Islam at the age of 7 is fighting to be recognized as a Hindu. She claims that although she was given a Muslim name, she led her life as a Hindu. She told AFP, “I have always stuck to my Hindu roots and practised all the traditions,’ she told AFP. “I was born as a Hindu, I have lived as a Hindu and I will die as a Hindu.”

This is a very problematic matter in Malaysia. The vicious anti-conversion laws make it almost impossible for Muslims to convert to other faith. We sincerely hope the Malaysian authority let this woman practice Hinduism and to be recognized as a Hindu.

Islamic extremism is rising in Malaysia. There has been instances such as banning yoga for Muslims. This is an ongoing struggle that the Muslim countries all over the world is facing. The minorities and liberals are being subjugated and persecuted. We will be following this news and update accordingly.

Source:  Dawn

Tags: convert, hindu, malaysia, rights

Hindus and Jews have strongly urged newly elected mayor of Sofia (Bulgaria) Yordanka Fandakova to improve the plight of Roma people residing in Sofia, who were reportedly facing apartheid like conditions.

Rajan Zed, acclaimed Hindu statesman; and Rabbi Jonathan B. Freirich, prominent Jewish leader in Nevada and California in USA; in a joint statement in Nevada today, said that mayor Fandakova should make Roma upliftment her first priority as their maltreatment was a dark stain on the face of Sofia and Bulgaria.

Zed, who is the president of Universal Society of Hinduism, and Rabbi Freirich stressed that it was simply immoral to continue staying apathetic and silent spectator ignoring Roma plight, who reportedly regularly faced social exclusion, racism, substandard education, hostility, joblessness, rampant illness, inadequate housing, lower life expectancy, unrest, living on desperate margins, stereotypes, mistrust, rights violations, discrimination, marginalization, appalling living conditions, prejudice, human rights abuse, etc.

Commissioner for Human Rights of Council of Europe Thomas Hammarberg, who recently concluded a three-day visit to Sofia, visited a Roma settlement in the Republika district of Sofia where he assessed the living conditions as inhumane. “No one should live in these conditions in today’s Europe” he declared.

Capital and largest city of Bulgaria, Sofia is the second oldest city in Europe whose roots can be traced back to about 7000 years. Lonely Planet has described Sofia as “city waking up after decades of slumber”.

Tags: Hinduism, human, jews, plight, Religion, rights

By Jahangir Alam Akash, In Bangladesh, the brutal persecution of the Hindu, Christian religious minority and indigenous ethnic minorities is going ahead with full steam. Until now, the persecution that both communities faced never saw the light of justice. A culture of the denial of justice in Bangladesh is the root of all the persecution against the ethnic and religious minorities, which isn’t only affecting a part of the country, but is plaguing the entire criminal justice system in Bangladesh.

General Zia and his predecessors introduced persecution against the minorities in Bangladesh. Bangladesh became Islamized under the military regime, rather than being a true parliamentary democracy. Bangladesh was not born with the blessing of being united beyond ethnic and religious differences, but rather has been Islamized, yet with a secular policy.

Religious minority oppression is a common phenomenon in Bangladesh. Every day, minority oppression is growing at an alarming rate. Yet our government is not doing its duty to safeguard the minority groups. Why aren’t they doing something to stop minority torture? We don’t know. But we have been seeing that most of the perpetrators are linked with the ruling party. People think that the present government may be turning a blind eye at minority issues. We want to say clearly that the people do not want to see the issue ignored, but rather, that they want to see peace and happiness. Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: Bangladesh, extremism, hindu, islamism, rights, terrorism

A new report has come up in Dr. Richard Benkin’s blog about forcefully confirming a woman to Islam. This case was reported by Bangladesh Hindu, Buddhist, Christan Unity Council and Global Human Rights Defense and the Bangladesh Minority Watch has investigated on the issue. It is reported that Koli Goswami, a 20 year old college student’s house was broken to get at least 5 Muslim and a government official broke into her house at 12:45 AM on June 13, 2008. They violated through the house to her and even through the girl tried to aleart the nearby neighbors about it by screaming aloud, the gang members fired their guns to keep them out of the way.

In this gang, Tauhidul Islam Bhuiya (Sumon) is in murder charges and even though he is supposed to in trials, he remains free. When police came, they said: “It is not kidnapping. It is love affairs between kidnapper and victim” and to many this does not seem like a love affair. The police do not want to keep in the flow with this case and evne though they have looked upon the case in video, the physical harm done to the house, the cry from the girl’s uncle, and the request from the family to help them get Koli back.

This still stays the same, Richard Benkin said in his blog, that the victims are commonly the young girls, women, and sometimes bodys. The government official that was in the issue suggested that the govenment is supporting these types of kidnapping and harrasing, converting a human to take against their will. What the Muslims have to understand is that even though they might think that forcing someone to go against their own will might make their religion more powerful, well, that might now become the case. They have to userstand that if they do not show the good path, one day the ones that were Muslim due to their ancestors for a long time will quit Islam and say that it is a forceful religion. If this continues, then one day the religion that was built forcefully will be closed down with no power from the physical strength but the mental.

Richard Benkin’s Blog

From Chotto Mind’s Blog

Tags: attack, Bangladesh, extremism, minority, rights, torture, violence, women

Bangladesh has got independence since 1971. After independence the peoples was got good constitution which was made in 1972. But after the killings of the nation Bongobondhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman peoples of Bangladesh has lost this constitution. Army men especially General Ziaur Rahman and General HM Ershad were broken our constitution. And then, put Islam in the constitution by arm force. Still we have been carrying the black spot.

In Bangladesh the brutal persecution on the religious Christian minority and ethnic Indigenous are rolling on in a stream roller mode. Until now the persecution that the both community faced never saw that light of justice. The culture of justice denial is the root of all persecution on the ethnic and religious minorities and it’s not the partial but a whole part of criminal justice system in Bangladesh.

The General Zia and his ancestors introduced the persecution on the minorities in Bangladesh. Bangladesh was blessed with the Islamization by the mechanism under military regime in absence of parliamentarian democracy. Bangladesh was not born with blessings to be communal but with a spirit of Islamization but a secular policy. The attack on the religious minority bring with the idea of “Islam in the constitution”.

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: Bangladesh, human, indigenous, Minority & Indigenous, rights

Child Prostitution in Bangladesh

Various organizations and individuals have been fighting for decades to ensure justice for women and children in Bangladesh. While progress has been nominal, violence continues to be notable.

Innocent souls are crying for justice. From January to March 2009, 73 women and children were the victims of rape or attempted rape; among those, 29 were gang raped and 13 were between ages 7 and 12. In May alone, 33 women and girls were the victims of rape. Among those, 16 were women and 17 were children under the age of 16. Out of the 16 women, five were victims of gang rape and three were killed after being raped. Out of the 17 girls, five were victims of gang rape and two were killed after being raped.

Between January and March 2009, six serious acts of violence against women were instigated by fatwas. When I discussed this issue with the law minister, he denied the necessity of introducing a specific law to ban fatwas. I repeatedly insisted on the necessity of a specific law to fight fatwa, as well as a law to identify the paternity of a child in cases where it is disputed.

Dowry is another social disease in Bangladesh. From January to March 2009, 44 women faced dowry-related violence; among these women, 23 died.

Bangladesh has the highest maternal mortality rate in the world: 440 per 100,000 live births, according to UNICEF, and more than 20,000 women in Bangladesh die annually from complications related to pregnancy and childbirth.

In Bangladesh, women do their best to fulfill their duties and take care of all their men’s needs; yet, from January to March 2009 alone, 45 women were abused by their husbands or their husbands’ relatives. Very recently, a woman, Parul Akter, who was seven months pregnant, was killed and her body thrown in a river; her two other children are still missing. This is the reality that many women in Bangladesh face.

We can name thousands of ways that women and children are facing oppression and repression in Bangladesh. Confucius said, “We should feel sorrow, but not sink under its oppression.” I do agree with that. For almost two decades, Bangladesh’s prime ministers have been women. The number of people who oppose and oppress woman and children are larger than the number of people who are oppressed or suppressed.

Women’s empowerment alone will not solve the problem; we need to treat women as human beings first, rather than simply as women. We need to break the silence and stand up against religious and cultural traditions that encourage the repression of women and children. I dream of a day when a woman will be treated as a human being first, when women will really be empowered and lead the nation toward a more humane way, as they are the source of the human race.

The whole system in Bangladesh is male-dominated, inspired by common prophet religions that have a culture of suppressing woman historically. We need to deal with these oppressors first. Many aw and wonderful steps had taken to bring an end to the suppression to woman and children but hopefully none of them succeed.

A Woman is Harassed by Police in Bangladesh

Sometimes, a police officer who oppresses his wife in the home is used to investigate a case of oppression against a woman. In this case, the police officer should be brought to trial before anything else. Bangladesh even has cases where, after being raped, the woman gets raped again in the police station by police officers.

More than anything, the religion of Islam encourages the majority of people in Bangladesh in the historical cultural traditions of oppressing women. Laws can change, while religion inspires adherents through heaven and hell; in this light, how will jail or capital punishment be able to make any significant change?

The Prophet Mohammed said, “I was standing at the edge of the fire (hell) and the majority of the people going in were women.” When the Quran and the Prophet Mohammed guide the majority of people in Bangladesh, and the Quran (4:34) orders a man to beat his wife if she doesn’t obey him, how will the law prevent the beating of women? Laws and conventions contradict the holy sayings of the Prophet and Allah and will surely fail to ensure the rights of women.

I silently cry for justice for women like Parul, Rahima, Rebeka, Shima, who was raped in front of her father, and Mili Rani, a minority girl who was raped and later committed suicide. All this happened inside of the society before you and me.

We need to break the silence and step up a revival for humanity and justice.

William Gomes is an independent human rights activist ,Freelance Journalist and a political analyst. He can be reached at cda.exe@gmail.com .

Tags: Bangladesh, harassment, prostitution, rape, rights, woman

Why cannot the Hindus in Bangladesh get the same benefit that the Muslims are getting in India? Is it all because we are Hindus, a minor group with little amount of population? Hindus in the world are 650-900 million and that is not a huge number on the population of the world which is about 1.57% and decreasing day by day from the last two decades. Is this number decreasing because of racism or many other factors?

For only the Indian Muslims, there are the The Muslim Personal Law (Shariat) Application Act 1937 which gives the Muslims in the right to marriage, dower, divorce, maintenance, gift, waqf and inheritance. But for the Hindus in Bangladesh, which is a country right next to India and have a majority or Muslims do not have any law supporting the Hindus and the minorities but have against it.

One of that is the Vested Property Act which was actually made by the leader or the Father of the Country, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman who made the law that if any person, a Hindu left the country to India, then the governement had the right to take over the property that was owned by that Hindu. The pronounced that if you go to India, you are the country’s enemy but if you go to Pakistan or any other country, you are not considered to be enemy of the country.

So, still why do the Muslims in India consider themselves minority and still want more benefit? Did they get the same hardships that the Hindus are getting in Bangladesh and many other Middle East countries like Pakistan and Afganistan? They do not even have the same factors that they are watching. But still why do they want more and more freedom? Do they want to stop their worship that the Hindus are doing and people like me who had seen all those know about it all. Yeah it might have changed a little bit now with the new government, but why was it even stopped at the first place? What if the Muslims in India were not able to celebrate their Eid like us who can’t celebrate our Durga Puja?

Tags: Bangladesh, hindu, Hinduism, minority, rights

Human Rights in Bangladesh

Humanize the Human Rights are the people’s demand of the time in Bangladesh. Some time in many issues we have experienced the raising voice against the factual human rights violations. Same time we do experienced the political partisanship and demoralization of human rights groups as well as individual Human Rights defenders. As a example human rights organizations are divided in the name and favor of politics, religion and donor orientated agenda and propaganda. Recently in the partition in the filed of Human Rights was focused in the argument on the issue of election monitoring of Bangladesh Ninth Parliamentary Elections. The two main political parties gave objection to the election commission objecting the partisanship of the selected NGO’s in the 34 members Election Working Group donated by international donor agencies . 

The major print and electronic media of Bangladesh has covered the facts widely. The said fact obviously brings in light the facts about the division and demoralization based on politics among the human rights group in Bangladesh. The democratic frame was stumbled by the demoralization of Human rights in Bangladesh.

I don’t oppose the practice of politics of individual or community. I do not wish the rule of military regime or dictatorship indeed. In the same time I do also don’t want to see the Human Rights of the peoples would be delimited and the rights of the people will be violated for the sake of political opinion or practice by the Human Rights instruments.  

The other division is very vocal and that creates a vital crucial division in the filed of Human Rights and also a great hindrance in the way to promote communal harmony and equip Human rights. There area certain Human Rights groups those who are working namely protecting the Human Rights of the peoples. But they only armed with hearted slogan in mind for others to protect the rights of the certain Religious groups with an ultra communal attitude.  

Among the irrational groups there are also highly inner divisions. Some are of them extensively working for the Hindus while others are highly sensitize for the Christian or others own faith .By these groups the Human Rights of the peoples are highly violated with high profile communal attitude.  

While the atheist groups are blaming the all religion in general as the root cause of all human rights violations and highly propagating to convince the people not to believe in Religion. 

Bangladesh is a poor developing country; the NGO’s mainly depends on foreign fund. The Ngo’s always tried to gain the foreign fund and the donor agency crucially enforces their propaganda related agenda with an ulterior motive. And that cause another highly diplomatic defect in the filed of Human Rights.  

 As an example the Arab based donor organizations donate the faith based Islamic fascist Ngo’s to Islamize the country. In past days Bangladesh government’s Intelligence agency like National Securities of Intelligence (NSI) and Directorate General of Intelligence (DGFI) has traced a bunch of Ngo’s who are patronizing the Islamic extremist and their Slogan for Islamization of the country. The Arab based facilitation influx the Islamic fascism and farm communal hatred that ends with a grenade attack or suicide bomb attack that’s kills thousands of innocent peoples and progressive peoples. Bangladesh’s present Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina Wazed, progressive British diplomat Anwar chowdhury was also among target who was targeted by the Islamic fascist to kill. 

 Any kind of division is a high hindrance in protecting the Human Rights of the people and equipping the peace and justice in the Human family. As all human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights, the Human rights groups or individual shouldn’t deny protecting the rights violated people of any belief or disbelief or for any political opinion indeed. It’s time to think locally but act globally to enroll the justice and peace. 

[William Gomes is an independent human rights activist, a Catholic ecumenical activist, and a political analyst. He is also the Executive Director of the Christian Development Alternative (CDA), a national organization against torture and human rights violations. He  can be contacted by email at cda.exe@gmail.com.]

Tags: Bangladesh, human, Religion, rights

Bangladeshi Muslim Doctor in Forced Marriage

Everyone is talking about Dr. Humayra Abedin and that what a big step it is for the rights of women in the UK. Lots of girls from Pakistan and Bangladesh are forced to marry unknown people from their respective countries. Sometimes they are viciously abused as it was the case for this doctor from the UK. 

A big problem especially for Bangladesh is that sometimes the parents are paid a high amount by the groom to marry their daughters so that he can move to UK/US. Therefore, it is a serious issue that need to be dealt with.

Apparently a lot of people do not know the reason behind this rage of her parents. The reason is because she had a good friendship with a Hindu man from Bangladesh. 

Her Muslim family became incensed after she developed a close friendship with a Hindu Bangladeshi man she met in London. Since May, they have made several attempts to keep her away from him and to force her into marriage. The Metropolitan Police launched an inquiry at the end of June, after she was held captive in her flat by her mother and uncle, who visited for several days. Her case has also been taken up by Interpol.

Read More: London doctor is held as forced marriage hostage

The interesting thing was that she did not necessarily had a romantic relationship with this person but a very close friendship. However, their parents got very threatened because of this. Therefore, I guess the Muslim women of Bangladesh should even have to be careful of becoming friends with Hindu guys.

The Islamic society has been very conservative and a lot of people claim out of touch in terms of women rights. A person, who has the capability and smartness to become a doctor, should be trusted to make her own decisions. However, unfortunately, the idea of treating women with the same respect as men is still new to them.

Tags: Bangladesh, hindu, muslim, rights, women

Richard Benkin

We are delighted to welcome Dr. Richard L. Benkin to our site. Through personal email discussions, I found Dr. Benkin to be most considerate when it comes down to helping the Hindus of Bangladesh. He has been to Bangladesh and India several times involving human rights issues.

He was also the champion behind the lobby of getting Shoaib Chowdhury released from jail. Mr. Chowdhury, a journalist from Bangladesh was arrested for advocating peace between Islam and Judaism. Dr. Benkin has worked on many projects alongside Mr. Chowdhury and therefore has crucial knowledge on where minorities face hardships, including property rights, rape, assault, cultural genocide etc.

I would like you to check out his site Interfaith Strength. He started this site to encourage understanding between different faiths and encourage discussion of human rights violations.

He is planning to visit India soon to lobby for human rights for Bangladeshi Hindus. We strongly appreciate his goal and honest approach. We would like to request everyone to donate to Dr. Benkin’s cause. The information on how to help him in his journey will be posted soon. However,  even $1 donation would be a great start and you can help him to help our people in Bangladesh.

Tags: benkin, Politics, Religion, richard, rights