Forcefield Board to Address Kolkata Rally for Bangladeshi Hindus

On February 14, the entire Board of Forcefield--the non-agenda driven human rights organization committed to ending the oppression of Bangladeshi Hindus--will take part in the annual meeting of Hindu Samhati in Kolkata, India. This year's event will be devoted to defending the Bangladeshi Hindus who are being systematically eliminated by Islamists, a government indifferent to their fate and so colluding in it, and a population with too many people who would rather feed their material comforts than their immortal souls.

In the prepared portion of his remarks, Forcefield President Richard Benkin from the United States asks the audience, estimated to be about 25,000: "What if you found yourself in Nazi Germany in the 1930s, or more recently in Darfur? You might have looked around and thought, ‘Something’s wrong. Something’s terribly wrong. You can see that. I’m afraid that something really bad is about to happen, and no one seems to be doing anything to stop it.’ Knowing what you know now, what would you have done? Gone about your life, pretending that you didn’t see what you saw? Or would you do everything in your power to stop the impending atrocity and save the lives of so many innocent people? Would it have mattered if you were not Jewish or African? We here today do not have to guess at what our answer should be. We have the lessons of history. Because of the Holocaust and what happened in places like Darfur, we know what will happen—and it is about to happen again."

Forcefield co-founder Miriam Jones from Australia notes: "FORCEFIELD is a new organisation but we are concerned and want to find out more. We have come here to listen and to learn and the things that we learn we shall take back to our governments of Australia and America. We want your story to be told. For far too long the world has been unaware but I am going to try and change that. I shall be going to Canberra and I shall be knocking on doors and I will not stop knocking until those doors open. Once those doors open I shall not leave until I have told your story and not only will I tell your story I will make sure that they are listening. And when I am sure they are Listening I will make sure that they will begin steps to change this injustice."

Although Forcefield's third Board Member, Amitabh Tripathi from India, is not expected to address the crowd, he will be instrumental in post-meeting discussions about a new effort combining Forcefield's efforts with those of Hindu Samhati and Tapan Ghosh.

The speeches and news of the event will be available after the rally. Benkin and Ghosh expect the rally and subsequent organizing to be a watershed in putting an end to the persecution of Hindus in Bangladesh.