Urgent Appeal to Safeguard Religious Minorities in Bangladesh

29 December 2024

The Right Honourable Sir Keir Starmer 

Prime Minister of the United Kingdom 

10 Downing Street 

London, SW1A 2AA 

Subject: Urgent Appeal to Safeguard Religious Minorities in Bangladesh 

Your Excellency, Prime Minister Starmer, 

On behalf of the British Hindu community and in solidarity with concerned organisations across the United Kingdom, I am writing to bring to your immediate attention the grave situation faced by religious minorities, particularly Hindus, in Bangladesh. This letter accompanies a multi-organisation statement appealing for intervention and urgent measures to address the escalating violence and persecution.

Bangladesh is currently enduring severe political turmoil, resulting in an alarming rise in violence against religious minorities. The enclosed statement outlines the distressing events following the departure of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, with mobs targeting Hindu, Christian, and Buddhist communities. There is growing evidence of looting, arson, and heinous crimes, including murder, rape, and land seizures. This systematic violence borders on genocide and threatens the very fabric of Bangladesh’s pluralistic society. 

The interim government led by Professor Muhammad Yunus has yet to curtail these atrocities, and the persecution continues unchecked. The attached document highlights specific cases, including the wrongful detention of Hindu monks and lack of legal representation. Such incidents demonstrate the urgent need for international intervention. 

We respectfully urge the Government of Bangladesh to: 

– Establish a tribunal to prosecute those responsible for crimes against religious minorities. 

– Ensure the safety, rights, and property of all religious minorities. 

– Release innocent detainees. 

– Form a Minority Ministry dedicated to safeguarding the rights of religious communities. 

– Reaffirm Bangladesh as a secular nation committed to protecting all its citizens.

We appeal to the United Kingdom, a longstanding ally and development partner of Bangladesh, to leverage its diplomatic channels to advocate for these measures. The British Hindu community, with deep familial and cultural ties to Bangladesh, remains deeply concerned for the safety and well-being of their relatives and the wider minority populations. 

We trust that your offices will give this urgent matter the serious attention it deserves. We remain hopeful that through collaborative international effort, peace and stability can be restored in Bangladesh, ensuring the safety of all its citizens, irrespective of their religious affiliations. 

Yours faithfully, 

Surinder Gautama

On behalf of the British Hindu Community 

[President, World Council of Hindus] 

Enclosures: 

1. Multi-organisation Statement on Bangladesh 

2. Appendix of Evidence and Media Reports 

Copy to: 

– Prof. Muhammad Yunus, Head of the Interim Government of Bangladesh

–  Her Excellency Ms. Sarah Cooke, British High Commissioner to Bangladesh

– General Secretary, United Nations

–  The broadcast and print media.

Appeal to the Interim Government of Bangladesh to Protect the Religious Minorities There

Bangladesh is currently undergoing turmoil caused by political instability which has, also unfortunately, resulted in the religious minorities suffering persecution. We, various organisations listed hereunder, ask the Interim Administrator Professor Muhammad Yunus to take urgent steps to restore peace and stability to the country, and in particular to ensure the religious minorities are protected.

The Situation
In the summer this year -2024 – a student’s-led public unrest was started in Bangladesh. In the battle between the activists and the security forces, many lives were lost. The insurgents turned violent and a state of anarchy resulted leading to the PM Sheikh Hasina leaving the country on August 5. The protesting militant mobs, encouraged by political groups, began unleashing violence against the supporters of the erstwhile Hasina government. But within a short time, this violence was directed towards the religious minorities, mostly Hindus, also Christians and Buddhists. In the social media recordings of these atrocities, voices were heard demanding the conversion of Bangladesh to an Islamic nation.

An interim Government led by Professor Muhammad Yunus was formed, but the anarchy and violence have continued. As the mobs attacked Hindus, damaging and burning their houses and temples, slogans of “leave this country or we will kill you” were heard.

The Government of Bangladesh has continued to downplay these events as a political backlash against the supporters of the erstwhile Hasina government. It maintains that all citizens are protected equally there. However numerous videos have surfaced on the social media. These show gruesome murders of Hindus, rapes and gang-rape of Hindu women and young girls, looting and arson of houses, businesses and temples, and the appropriation of their agricultural lands and cattle.
It is also pertinent to state that a prominent Hindu monk, Chinmoy Krshna Das, who was arrested for no clear reason remains in custody awaiting trial. The lawyer who had agreed to represent his case was murdered on the roadside by miscreants shortly after he had come forward to defend the monk. No one now wants to step in to defend him. Justice has been denied to this individual, and we ask he should be released from custody and tried in court on specific charge(s).

These are actions bordering on genocide of religious minorities, and yet international media, the NGOs, and the Human Rights groups have, in the main, kept silent on this issue.

What Needs to Be Done
We ask the Government of Bangladesh:

  1. To establish a tribunal to prosecute all who have committed crimes against citizens, especially those belonging to the religious minorities.
  2. To protect the rights of religious minorities and release from detention those who are innocent.
  3. To establish a Minority Ministry that would in future safeguard the lives and property of religious minorities.
  4. To state that the nation is, and will remain, secular.

We request countries of the world, in our case that of the United Kingdom, to use their good offices to help in the restoration of peace and stability in Bangladesh and help in pursuance of the above-mentioned actions. The many British Citizens hailing from Bangladesh remain extremely worried about the safety of their families in Bangladesh.

Copy to

  1. Prof. Muhammad Yunus, Head of the Interim Government of Bangladesh
  2. General Secretary of the United Nations Organisation
  3. Prime Minister of Great Britain, Sir Keir Starmer
  4. The broadcast and print media.
    Appendix:

a) In 1947 at the time of Partition of India, in East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) Hindus constituted 27% of the population. At the last Census that population has gone down to 7%.
Religious persecution (and forced conversion to Islam) is the main reason for this dramatic fall. This is indeed genocide.
Year in, year out, the killings of Hindus have continued.
At the time of East Pakistan’s struggle for freedom, estimates suggest no less than 2.5 million Hindus were slaughtered by the Pakistan Army.

b) A Bangladeshi Human Rights Group, Ain o Salish Kendra, reported “at least 3,679
attacks on the Hindu community between January 2013 and September 2021, including vandalism, arson and targeted violence, with Awami League leaders allegedly complicit in several cases”.

c) BBC: 6 August 2024: ‘There is no law and order. And Hindus are being targeted again’
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cwy77vgmjlzo

d) Al Jazeera: 12 Dec, 2024
https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2024/12/12/our-lives-dont-matter-in-post-hasina-bangladesh-hindus-fear-future
In 2021, following mob attacks on Hindu minority households and temples in Bangladesh during and after Durga Puja, the country’s biggest Hindu festival, the rights group Amnesty International said: “Such repeated attacks against individuals, communal violence and destruction of the homes and places of worship of minorities in Bangladesh over the years show that the state has failed in its duty to protect minorities.”

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