Persecution of Minority Communities
Although Bangladesh is a party to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, a covenant designed to ensure freedom of religion and of expression, it has tolerated violent assaults on religious minority communities by extremists.
In January 2004, the government succumbed to an ultimatum from their coalition partner, the Islami Okiya Jote, and the extremist vigilante Khatme Nabuwat Movement to declare that Ahmadi Muslims are "not" Muslims. Not wishing to lose its majority, Ahmadiyya publications were declared illegal by the government. A constitutional court suspended the ban, but Islamist groups are threatening legal challenge to this.
Attacks on the homes and places of worship of Ahmadiyya are still prevalent, but the government has chosen neither to prosecute those responsible, nor discipline police officers who failed to protect victims. Other religious minorities have come under attack, with abductions, desecration of religious sites, and forced conversions persistently reported. There have been many reports of Hindus having been evicted from their properties, and of Hindu girls being raped, but the police have refused to investigate, to this point. Due to this climate of religious persecution, several hundred thousand Buddhists, Hindus and Christians have left the country.
Read more about this topic: Human Rights In Bangladesh
Famous quotes containing the words persecution, minority and/or communities:
“That diabolical Hell conceived principle of persecution rages among some [people] and to their eternal Infamy the clergy can furnish their Quota of Imps for such business.”
—James Madison (1751–1836)
“What characterizes a member of a minority group is that he is forced to see himself as both exceptional and insignificant, marvelous and awful, good and evil.”
—Norman Mailer (b. 1923)
“Culture is the name for what people are interested in, their thoughts, their models, the books they read and the speeches they hear, their table-talk, gossip, controversies, historical sense and scientific training, the values they appreciate, the quality of life they admire. All communities have a culture. It is the climate of their civilization.”
—Walter Lippmann (1889–1974)