Bangladesh Hindus

Hindu American Foundation Namaste HAF Supporters, We need you to make TWO 30 second calls today: Call your Congressman and the House Foreign Affairs Committee. As the HAF delegation prepares to hit the halls of Congress next week for the 10th Annual DC Advocacy Days, we need your help in laying the groundwork on an important and timely issue. What is the issue? We are asking the House Foreign Affairs Committee to hold a hearing on the escalating violence against minorities, mainly Hindus, in Bangladesh.  The most recent violence follows the convictions of three Jamaat-e-IsIami (JeI) leaders by the International Crimes Tribunal for engaging in "crimes against humanity" during Bangladesh's 1971 War of Independence from Pakistan, when an estimated three million people were killed and 200,000 women raped. JeI is a radical Islamist political organization seeking to create a theocratic Islamic state in Bangladesh.  Since late January, large-scale violence...

Dated 22-May-2013 By Bhaskar Roy   It was inevitable and had to happen, because some politicians in Bangladesh have conscience.   Recently, some senior leaders of the main opposition party, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), told the media, on condition of anonymity, that their Chairperson Begum Khaleda Zia was being misled by some close to her to make statements that were both damaging to her and their party.  These leaders did not take any names, but mentioned some “party outsiders” and a particular “leftist-turned-Islamist jihadi intellectual”, and that a section of Khaleda Zia’s staff, including some retired civil servants and military officers, helped this jehadi intellectual to influence her.  Names may not have been mentioned, but for those within the party and other politicians and the media, the accused people would have been quickly identified. Cracks within the BNP had become evident for almost a year now.  Sections of the party’s youth ...

Washington, D.C.(May 15, 2013) - Decrying a steep rise in atrocities against religious minorities, an international religious freedom coalition of 23 organizations and individuals led by the Hindu American Foundation urged the U.S. House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee to host a Congressional hearing on the ongoing persecution of religious minorities in Bangladesh.   According to the Coalition, large-scale anti-minority violence, widespread restrictions on religious freedom, and the growing influence and power of radical Islamist groups, such as Jamaat-e-Islami (JeI) and Hefazat-e-Islam, have resulted in a rapidly deteriorating situation for religious minorities in Bangladesh.   "It's critical that Congress, and specifically the House Foreign Affairs Committee, holds a hearing to examine the growing threat that Islamic extremist groups, including Jamaat-e-Islami, pose to vulnerable religious minorities as well as to Bangladesh's internal security...