Date: Mon, 17 Dec 2001 14:46:43 -0800
Subject: Fwd: San Jose Mercury News --- Hindu Abuse in Bangladesh


>
>
>http://www0.mercurycenter.com/premium/local/docs/bangladsh16a.htm
>
>
>Published Sunday, Dec. 16, 2001, in the San Jose
>Mercury News
>
>Hindus in Bangladesh abused, groups claim
>CRACKDOWN FOLLOWED OCTOBER ELECTION, ACTIVISTS SAY IN
>SUNNYVALE
>BY KEN MCLAUGHLIN
>Mercury News
>
>While the world's eyes are focused on Afghanistan,
>Hindus are being brutally repressed in Bangladesh, the
>most democratic Muslim-dominated country in the
>region, Hindu groups in Silicon Valley said Saturday.
>
>Since the electoral victory of Prime Minister Khaleda
>Zia on Oct. 1, thousands of Hindus have fled
>Bangladesh to avoid being killed or raped, said
>representatives of Hindu groups and the human rights
>group Amnesty International at a Hindu Solidarity Day
>attended by about 150 people at a Sunnyvale temple.
>
>``Without notice during the past two months, Hindus
>have been the victims of ethnic cleansing,'' said
>Venkatesh Murthy of San Ramon, West Coast secretary
>for Hindu Swayam Sevak Sangh, a cultural group.
>
>The Bangladeshi government has strongly denied that
>Hindus were attacked following the October election.
>But in late November, the country's highest court
>ordered the government to explain its failure to take
>steps to protect the Hindu minority.
>
>About 10 percent of Bangladesh's 135 million residents
>are Hindus. Virtually all the rest are Muslim.
>
>The court issued the order after a legal rights group
>claimed that both before and after last month's
>national elections, ``the minorities came under
>various threats, attacks and persecution and were
>subjected to looting of their properties.'' The group,
>Ain-O-Salish Kendra, also claimed that women and young
>girls have been raped by fundamentalist Muslim thugs.
>
>If the repression is allowed to continue, ``in 20
>years there will be no more Hindus left in
>Bangladesh,'' said Dhiman Chowdhury, president of the
>Human Rights Congress for Bangladesh Minorities, a
>worldwide organization based in Santa Clara.
>
>Even before the election, the Hindu community was
>targeted by supporters of the Bangladesh Nationalist
>Party for their perceived support for the rival Awami
>League, Amnesty International says.
>
>Bangladeshi newspapers have reported that thugs have
>entered Hindu homes, beaten family members and looted
>their property.
>
>On Nov. 5, according to Amnesty International, a gang
>of about 25 youths reportedly attacked Hindu homes in
>the village of Daspara. A 28-year-old man was hacked
>to death, and 16 others were injured. Police arrested
>a dozen people.
>
>More than 100 women are believed to have been raped,
>often in front of their husbands or fathers, Govind
>Acharya of Oakland, the Bangladesh specialist for
>Amnesty International USA, told the group gathered at
>the Hindu Mandir temple.
>
>Authorities claimed that Kabir's videos contained
>``objectionable and misleading statements that are
>detrimental to communal harmony and subversive of the
>state'' and that he was involved in ``tarnishing the
>image of Bangladesh and of the government in the
>outside world.''


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