Bangladesh Official dismisses crimes with anti-Semitic remark

On March 10, 2015, human rights activist and attorney Rabindra Ghosh met with H. T. Imam, Awami League Advisory Council member and one of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's closest advisers.  He met him to address Bangladesh's ongoing ethnic cleansing of Hindus in Bangladesh.  It is an issue I addressed with Imam four years earlier in Dhaka.  As he did when I met with him, Imam rejected any suggestion that Hindus face persecution under the Awami League government.  When Ghosh raised my name and my eight year activism on the issue, Imam dismissed the notion that any of it could be correct, instead responding that “Dr. Benkin is working for the interests of the Jews.”

Is he serious?  Does he expect a man of Rabindra Ghosh’s stature—or other world leaders and captains of industry—to have any regard for a government whose Prime Minister gives credence to a man who thinks like that?   The short answer is that he does because Imam and other Bangladeshi officials have used that and other sorts of nonsense to try and cover up their horrendous treatment of Hindus.  You see, it's more important to Bangladeshi leaders that people continue buying their falsehoods about being a "moderate" country.  No amount of blustering and misdirection, however, can hide their crimes.  With each day, their atrocities against Hindus become known to more and more people.  I've also documented them in my book, A Quiet Case of Ethnic Cleansing: the Murder of Bangladesh's Hindus.

But there is more significance to Awami League anti-Semitism.  For while the Bangladeshi government is complicity in anti-Hindu atrocities and guilty of selling its soul to protect its export markets (which are dependent on their false image as moderate); the people of Bangladesh are not.  It takes a lot of care and time for non-Bengalis to understand how to interpret the actions and words of Bengalis, and I have been fortunate enough to spend a lot of quality time in Bengal (both Indian and Bangladeshi) and with Bengalis.  When I travel throughout Bengal to stop the atrocities against Bengali Hindus, I am accompanied almost invariably by Muslims and Hindus.  The reaction I have received from Bangladeshi Muslims to HT Imam's slanderous remark has been one of support and understanding.  They have without exception rejected Imam's comment as an attempt to avoid dealing with the persecution of Bangladesh's Hindus.

As I have written before, this is not a war between Hindus and Muslims but one between decent people and those who have no decency.  Personally, I want Sheikh Hasina to sack HT Imam and stop discrediting herself by associating her name with his.  That, however, will not end the problem.  My greater wish is for Hindus and Muslims to recognize what Bangladesh is and what it can be; and with the help of other nations, together move that country to a new future.

Ten Bangladeshi Hindus Charged with Murder, Denied Due Process

It is a cherished myth of the international elites that Bangladesh is a "moderate" country.  But would a moderate country allow the ethnic cleansing of its non-Muslim populations; admit to having anti-minority laws and then do nothing about it even when it had a chance; arrest journalists and authors for blasphemy and threaten their lives; allow human rights activists and their attorneys to be attacked or as in my case bar them from entering the country?  No, it would not; and though we need no more proof, Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and her government keep giving us more.  Right now, ten Hindus sit in a squalid prison, charged with murder as collective punishment and denied due process of law.  Perhaps Bangladesh is a moderate country if you tow the line set by Islamists but not if you dare to have a different thought.

In October of 2013, a man entered a religious temple, began destroying holy objects and abusing the women there.  Several men rushed to their defense, and in the struggle that followed, the man was killed.  Now in a moderate country, that might be the end of it except for some press and an investigation; a clear case of self-defense.  But this is Bangladesh, and the dead man was a Muslim, the temple a Hindu temple.  Almost immediately, the local police rounded up eleven members of the Hindu community seemingly at random with no logical connection to the event, and charged them with murder.  The bitter irony is that this same government fails to act even after years when Hindus are attacked.  Local Advocates in Gopalganj, the district represented by Sheikh Hasina where the arrests occurred, were intimidated not to take the case. So the families traveled to the capital of Dhaka and engaged the services of Advocate and human rights activist Rabindra Ghosh.  When he arrived in Gopalganj and asked to see his clients, he was refused.  When he petitioned the local court for justice, he was beaten in the courtroom in front of the judge who allowed it to continue.  When he petitioned the High Court for a change of venue, he was refused.  And now he, his clients, and their families are being threatened if he does not stop his attempt at further appeals.

Oh, did I say eleven men were arrested and charged but only ten sit in prison today?  That's not  typo.  One of the original defendants died while in custody--and of course the Bangladeshis have not looked into that.

The International Commission of Jurists has called on the Bangladeshi government to take "long overdue" action on Rabindra Ghosh's courtroom beating. It also notes that the rule of law has largely broken down in Bangladesh.  And last month in India, I began working on this with Human Rights Defense International, a group of Indian jurists.  I also am working with several staff in the United States Congress on action and am in regular contact with Rabindra Ghosh, who reports that the situation for his clients grows more alarming by the day.  He remains barred from contacting them.

This travesty of justice demands that all who love the law and, in fact, all good people demand due process and a fair trial for the "Gopalganj Ten."  To do so, email me.  Please help; lives depend on it.

Hindu Victims Still Ignored

With the world's attention focused on headline grabbing international matters in Gaza, the Ukraine, Syria and soon somewhere else, victims of ongoing human rights atrocities continue to suffer as they have day after day, month after month, year after year.  For whatever set of reasons, Hindus in Bangladesh have always found their victimization pushed aside by "more important" matters.  And today, while the UN Security Council and others posture and issue declarations about hundreds dying in the Middle East, they are silent about the millions of Bangladeshi Hindus who face government tolerated atrocities daily; atrocities that include murder, rape (including gang rape), child abduction, forced conversion, religious desecration, and more.

There is Eti Biswas, 22 years old when she was abducted in December 2012, who has not been seen since.  The Bangladeshi government has refused to help find the young woman and bring her back to her family; nor has it prosecuted the known perpetrators who openly boast of their "victory."  Worse, the act was retaliation against the family because they refused to abandon their small piece of land simply because they are Hindu; and in fact local officials participated in the abduction.  Koli Goswami was 20 years old when she was abducted in 2009, and she is still missing.  Local police, a magistrate, and even an Awami League MP hatched a cover-up and warned her guardian to back off or his daughters would suffer the same fate.

And right now, 15 Hindus remain in custody in Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's home district, accused of murdering a Muslim.  The latter stormed a Hindu temple, started desecrating deities and abusing women; and when locals stopped him, he was killed.  The men awaiting trial were picked up seemingly at random and charged with the crime.  Perhaps because it knows that the charges are false, the Bangladeshi government has deprived them of due process.  Their families engaged the prominent human rights attorney, Rabindra Ghosh, to represent the accused.  Yet, when he went to see his clients, he was beaten by anti-Hindu lawyers in the courtroom and with the magistrate's tacit approval.  Since then, the local court has determined to proceed with the trial of these men--with those same anti-Hindu lawyers as their counsel.  Advocate Ghosh petitioned the Bangladeshi High Court for a simple change of venue (pretty reasonable given the facts), and was turned down flat.  By the way, there was a sixteenth Hindu accused of the crime, and he mysteriously died in custody.

For decades, the world's self-appointed guardians of human rights have ignored the ethnic cleansing of Hindus in Bangladesh, who have gone from almost a third of the population to perhaps one in 15.  It is high time we end our shameful silence.

Is this the year when the US exposes Bangladesh for what it is?

People who have any ground-up familiarity with Bangladesh find the notion of it as a "moderate" country laughable.  It's an idea that springs forth from elites in the diplomatic corps, academia, the media, and leftists everywhere.  It's not a notion that has any relation to what is actually happening there.

For decades, radical Islamists have taken over one social institution after another, including education, banking, even the law.  Perhaps the most tragic irony of calling Bangladesh moderate, though, is how it receives the title while allowing or even participating in the systematic elimination of its non-Muslim minorities.  My own focus is Bangladesh's Hindu community, which has fallen from almost a fifth of the population at Bangladesh's birth in 1971 to perhaps as few as one in 15 today. During that time, we have received ongoing reports of anti-Hindu atrocities including murder, rape and gang rape, child abduction, forced conversion, religious desecration, land seizures, and more.  But minorities face attacks in many nations.  The situation in Bangladesh becomes a human rights atrocity that deserves international intervention because Bangladeshi governments regardless of party have refused to prosecute all but a few cases; they have enabled it and still do.

Those who believed the current, Awami League government would be different were wrong.  During its first term in office, major anti-Hindu atrocities occurred at or over an average of one per week.  There were especially horrendous periods, such as a nine-day span May 2012 that included a murder in broad daylight, a child abduction, and two rapes (one of a child on her way to a Hindu religious festival).  While my tabulation is not final yet, the situation in 2013 and so far in 2014 appears no better.  Not only has the government refused to help retrieving abducted women and children; in many cases, its officials participated in the crimes.

These are only the crimes I verified myself; many more were reported, which my limited resources did not let me investigate.  All of them were confirmed by at least independent witnesses, occurred under the Awami League government, were not prosecuted, and were targeted specifically against Hindus and Hinduism.

Organizations like the Hindu American Foundation have been publicizing Bangladesh's ill-treatment of Hindus for years.  Bangladeshi human rights giant, Rabindra Ghosh, has been investigating and documenting it for at least that long.  Yet, people who can do something about it seem to want to hold on to their fairy tale about a moderate Bangladesh, truth be damned.  Until now.  I am currently involved in initiatives in multiple international capitals that would restrict Bangladesh’s ability to sell its exports, provide UN peacekeeping troops, and otherwise maintain its current economy as long as it is the economic engine that drives the ethnic cleansing of Hindus and other minorities.

The US House Foreign Affairs Committee (one of the most powerful) and its Chairman Congressman Ed Royce have been working with me to hold hearings this year on Bangladesh's ethnic cleansing of Hindus.

Mount Prospect, Illinois (just outside of Chicago) recently became the first US city to issue a formal proclamation recognizing Bangladesh's ethnic cleansing of Hindus; we expect more localities to follow, and expect them to be the basis for action depriving Bangladesh of the income it uses to maintain its persecution of minorities.

Bi-partisan representatives of Members of the US Congress have let the US Commission on International Religious Freedom know that they can no longer give Bangladesh a pass on its human rights violations because it threw off military rule over six years ago.

At least three major NGOs have asked me to work with them on the issue of Bangladesh's Hindus.

And just this week, some Congressional aides asked if they could help me get the matter before the US House's human rights commission.

Bangladesh depends on the tacit complicity of other by way of their silence.  Once the matter is out in the open, companies that currently purchase their goods will not want to be associated with ethnic cleansing; the UN would not have peacekeepers who cannot even keep the peace within their own borders; and the Awami League government will actually have to do something rather than mouth empty platitudes.  Stay tuned because we expect a lot to happen in the near future to change this debate forever.

Post Script:  In a recent human rights mission, I saw first hand that Bangladesh has been exporting its anti-Hindu jihad across the border to West Bengal and Assam states in India. Its large scale infiltration is also causing an environmental disaster in Assam that we expect to address this year as well.  My advice to Bangladesh's leaders:  take action before others force action upon you; and recognize that once you lose those international markets, others will step into the void and you will never re-gain your previous position if you later decide to do the right thing.  Just do it now.

Bangladeshi Human Rights Giant, Rabindra Ghosh, attacked; Demand Action

On July 27, 2013, human rights activist, Rabindra Ghosh and his colleague were attacked, poisoned, and needed emergency medical care to save their lives.  Thus far, the Bangladeshi government has taken no action to find and punish the perpetrators.

Ghosh and his colleague, Ganesh Rajongshi, were returning from one human rights fact-finding trip in Khulna and reached Natore, where they were to investigate another case of anti-Hindu activity.  At that point, a group of perpetrators attacked them with some sort of poison; and emergency personnel had to rush them, unconscious, to Natore Sadar Hospital. Rajbongshi remained unconscious and had to be transferred to Rajshahi Medical College on the Indian border.  Doctors said his condition was precarious.  Both men are still receiving medical care for their injuries.

The incident has been confirmed and published in at least three Bangladeshi newspapers.

Ghosh has been attacked by Islamist radicals and government operatives on several occasions, including May and June of last year.  In April 2012, Ghosh’s 87 year old mother was attacked in retaliation for his unrelenting human rights actions.  None of the perpetrators were ever punished.

In light of the Bangladeshi government’s history of allowing attacks on Rabindra Ghosh to go unpunished, documented cases where government operatives warned human rights activists to stop investigating cases of anti-Hindu human rights abuses, and the decades-long ethnic cleansing of Hindus that the Bangladeshi government tacitly supports; it is clear that Rabindra Ghosh and Ganesh Rajongshi cannot expect justice from the Bangladeshi government without outside intervention.

Justice’s best chance will come if those receiving this release contact their US Senators and Members of Congress and ask them to send a formal letter of inquiry to the Bangladeshi embassy in Washington.  Ask them to inquire (formally) about the arrest and prosecution of the perpetrators, as well as government actions to protect Rabindra Ghosh and other human rights activists from attacks by radicals and government operatives.

I have worked with lawmakers before and am happy to supply needed information, a mocked up sample letter, or anything else they might need.  I know both victims personally and have traveled with them to investigate anti-Hindu actions throughout Bangladesh; I can vouch for their integrity and the integrity of their cause.  If you need help with contact information for your Senator or Member of Congress, contact me or go to:  http://www.contactingthecongress.org/.

The Real War in South Asia

Trained as a social scientist, I learned that if a factor appears in event after event, ignoring it is intellectually dishonest and ineffective analysis.  As recent terror blasts in the South Indian city of Hyderabad remind us, Islam is terrorism’s repeating factor; and no one has yet to explain effectively why it would not be dishonest to summarily dismiss it as one.  Moreover, the refusal of Muslim leaders lay and clerical to act assiduously against those who commit terror in their name is troubling, to say the least.  It should be inconceivable that we live in a world where a group calling itself Indian Mujahadeen sets off terrorist bombs in a crowded Indian market, and stuffs them with nails to create the maximum amount of human suffering; and every single Muslim in South Asia is not hunting down the terrorists.  But we do.  And the rest of the world is not calling them on it, which is our part of the problem.

Yet, having just returned from Bangladesh where Islamists and their appeasers are eliminating its Hindu population, I can say that on the ground this is not a war between Hindus and Muslims but one between decent people and people who have no decency regardless of religion.

In the far northern district of Dinajpur, I recently visited a remote village of 85 Hindu families, cut off from the rest of Bangladesh in almost every way:  no electricity, bad roads, not even a signal for my cell phone.  Some time before our visit, more than 100 marauding Muslims attacked the village; moving from home to home, taking some possessions and destroying the rest; from farm to farm stealing livestock and destroying crops.  They torched the homes burning many to the ground; and they abused many of the women (an all-too-common feature of these attacks).  By the time human rights attorney Rabindra Ghosh and I arrived, the villagers had largely rebuilt, but charred remnants were there, too.  More chilling, the attackers are threatening to return and finish the job if the people do not leave Bangladesh.

Those attackers have no decency; and neither do the Bangladeshi officials, local and national, who refuse to help the victims or prosecute the attackers and are thereby complicit in the terror.  Right now, the only thing that stands in their way is four local Muslim policemen.  They told us that prior to the attacks, no one ever came to the village but that since then, they get there as frequently as possible, often multiple times daily, to let the villagers’ tormenters know that they will have to get through them if they want to renew the attacks.  (Villagers confirmed this.)  They are doing this largely on their own since, as they admit, the government is taking no action.  They fear for the villagers, however, because they know they cannot be there all the time.

In a country where decisions by public servants are based on how much money they get for it, these Muslim policemen represent the apogee of decency.

On the other hand, two Hindu Members of Parliament (MPs) visited me, and I asked them why neither they nor their 15 colleagues (by their count) have done a thing to save their co-religionists or even raised their voice against it.  I indicated Bangladeshi human rights lawyer and tireless activist, Rabindra Ghosh, beside me and said he could provide them with a fresh atrocity that they can read into the record at every session of the Jatiya Sangsad.  They could protest the non-repeal of the Vested Property Act and introduce bills to rescind this economic engine of ethnic cleansing until it is.  I pointed out that 17 MPs is a large bloc, and that the only thing preventing them from acting was their personal greed and moral cowardice.

They are not decent people, but the many young Bangladeshis I met—both Hindu and Muslim—who are trying to fight for the safety of Hindus are.  For their service to their country, the Bangladeshi police and government—who are not decent—rewarded them with beatings and arrests.

Then there is Bangladesh’s Home Minister, Muhiuddin Khan Alamgir, particularly indecent because he is able to do something to stop the atrocities but refuses to do so.  On February 20, he and I had a rather acrimonious argument when he insisted that the government was doing just fine, thank you, in preventing attacks on Hindus.  I wondered how the people I met in that Dinajpur village would have responded.  His most insistent reply was that he “saw the enclaves of the Red Indians” in the United States and that “33 people were killed in Connecticut.” He also “countered” with “union membership has declined in the United States.”  Whether he really thought they have any relation to their government-aided ethnic cleansing of Hindus in Bangladesh, or he was being cynical; the man has no decency.  Finally, he did ask me to provide him with evidence of any atrocities and he would have them investigated; but I asked him if he did not find it odd that he, the nation’s Home Minister sitting in its capital, was dependent on “some guy from Chicago” for information about events in Bangladesh.

Perhaps, however, the most indecent parties of all are the internationally referenced and well-funded  groups that claim the mantle of human rights defenders but who have actively ignored what has become an open secret in South Asia.  In its 2012 “Human Rights Report” on Bangladesh, Amnesty International did not even mention oppression of Hindus.  It claimed to have visited Bangladesh three times that year but could not find a trace of what has become an open secret that has been well-documented by organizations like the Hindu American Foundation, Global Human Rights Defence, and Bangladesh Minority Watch for years.

Amnesty International; Human Rights Watch; the UN with its misnomered human rights commission; the finger-wagging European Union, CNN, Reuters, the BBC, New York Times, Times of India, Times of London, the left-wing media, the right-wing media, and pretty much every other major “media”:  indecent for their willful ignorance of the ethnic cleansing of Hindus in Bangladesh and of those Islamists and appeasers that are guilty of doing it.

So let’s add it up.  Muslim police, Muslim and Hindu youth activists, activists like Rabindra Ghosh; decent.  Hindu MPs, Muslim attackers, Muslim cleric and political leaders, big name human rights organizations and media, and the Bangladeshi Home Minister; indecent.  The ledger seems tilted against decency right now, and it seems the only hope Bangladesh’s Hindus have is for decent people to change that.

Bangladesh Fine with Hindus' Destruction

On February 20, 2013, I met with Bangladesh Home Minister Muhiuddin Khan Alamgir in his Dhaka office.  Having just returned from Dinajpur where I witnessed irrefutable evidence of Hindus' ethnic cleansing and government complicity, I wished to deliver a simple message.  Bangladesh has been able to get away with empty promises regarding the process that has reduced Hindus from a fifth of the population to just over seven percent, but that time is drawing to an end.  Bangladesh can either get on top of the process by taking certain concrete steps and help manage it; or it can be the recipient of whatever might come as a result of their inaction.

While some Bangladeshi officials have at least acknowledged the problem, this individual was having none of it.  He was adamant that his government was doing just fine, thank you very much, and it had no intention of doing anything more with regard to this human rights travesty.  In fact, his responses did not attempt to show how it was indeed not a problem and that Hindus in Bangladesh are just fine, but they took the form of accusations:  "I have seen the enclaves of the Red Indians," "33 people were killed in Connecticut," and "union membership has declined in the United States," which I pointed out, if I can take him at his word, indicate the depth of the problem they have.

It is an unfortunate fact that minorities are attacked pretty much everywhere.  The only reason for outsiders like me to get involved is when the insiders refuse to respond and send a message that such things are okay with them--the same message the Home Minister and early their US Ambassador sent.  I suggested that the Home Minister travel to Dinajpur where Bangladeshi human rights activist Rabindra Ghosh and I saw a village of frightened Hindus who were attacked by a group of marauding Muslims who went from home to home stealing what they wanted and destroying the rest, and from farm to farm destroying crops and stealing livestock.  The government refused to take any action and the area's MP is involved in grabbing the Hindu land; and the attackers keep threatening to return and "finish the job" if the Hindus do not leave Bangladesh.  The only thing preventing them from now is four Muslim policemen who go to the village on their own.

But the Home Minister just said that if there are atrocities, I should send him the evidence and he would investigate.  Besides the fact that this would do nothing in time for these villagers, I asked:  "Doesn't it seem odd that you, the Home Minister sitting in the nation's capital, are dependent on some guy from Chicago for evidence of such crimes?"  I also told him that such things should be handled at the local level by local officials and should not require an "investigation" by the Home Minister.

Yet, he remained adamant that they would not change anything--even the blatantly anti-Hindu laws that his government promised to repeal, had a chance to repeal, but did not.  That is, he was adamant until I suggested that such obstinacy could lead to a situation where they might find it difficult to sell their garments on the open market; at which point he pleaded poverty that fixing the problem would take money and that such sanctions would deprive them of it.

Stay tuned because leaders in at least two foreign capitals have been filled in on our encounter, presented with the damning evidence against Bangladesh, and are seriously contemplating action.

Ignorance is not Bliss

Perhaps because I maintain close track of events in South Asia, I am constantly amazed at how little most Americans know about events there.  Moreover, it is clear that India will likely to become one of the US's most important allies--if we proceed appropriately--and that South Asia is the really critical battleground between freedom and Islamist totalitarianism.

To be sure, we in the West are blissfully ignorant of perhaps the largest case of ethnic cleansing in modern times:  the elimination of Hindus in Bangladesh, who even after being driven from almost a third of the population to under eight percent, still number around 15 million souls--15 million souls at risk and facing brutalization every day.   This quiet case of ethnic cleansing, as I have dubbed it, is now spilling into India, particularly in West Bengal and the Northeast where radicals and appeasers now seem to hold sway.

A small number of Americans know a little about mass murders in Bangladesh during its 1971 revolution by Pakistani troops and local collaborators--around two to three million; and a smaller number will avidly point to the current Bangladeshi government's prosecution of those decades old crimes.  That might be true--and it comports with the ruling party's ideology--but almost none of my fellow Americans know that those prosecutions cover only the highest profile offenses, and specifically ignore some of the most egregious examples of anti-Hindu activity.  According to Rabindra Ghosh of Bangladesh Minority Watch and a tireless foe of government-enabled ethnic cleansing in his country, 22 Hindus were killed for their faith at Motbaria Upazilla of the Perojpur District of Bangladesh in 1971; and due in part to pressure by a Member of Parliament, not a single charge has ever been filed in the case.  Several newspapers have highlighted the murders and lack of prosecution, but no Bangladeshi government has ever taken action.  As a result of his activism, Advocate Ghosh and his family have been attacked by radicals with impunity.

In December, Indians were horrified at the gang rape-torture of a 23-year-old student on a public bus in Delhi.  The nation was agonizing over the incident as the young woman clung to her life.  When she lost that battle some days later, the reaction from Indians regardless of party or ideology was one of shock and anger.  They demanded that the perpetrators be brought to justice and that the country seriously examine why India has been ranked as "the worst nation to be female" among the G20 countries.  The intense pain and serious re-consideration has the potential to re-set gender roles in an area of the world where such change lags seriously behind much of the globe.  But it remains to be seen if those who claim the mantle of women's rights have even taken notice, let alone offer help in what could be a real watershed in gender equality.

Is it political alliances, ignorance, or a bias that considers victims worthy only if they have been defined so?  No matter, as far as most westerners are concerned, the brutalization of Hindus can proceed apace--even while strengthening our most inveterate enemies, as can the brutalization of women.

The Way Forward

Election Night 2012 saw a number of our friends and human rights allies go down to defeat.  The most significant loss was that of Illinois Congressman Robert Dold--a man whom I consider a friend; a good man; and someone whose defeat is more of a loss for the country than it is a loss for just one man.  Of whatever disappointments I had that night, Bob Dold's defeat was the one about which I am truly and personally sad.

Having said that, we must understand that while I have my own personal values and beliefs, politics is ultimately a means through which we achieve our human rights goal.  And in that respect, we retain many friends in Washington who are committed to helping us save the 15 million Hindus in Bangladesh.  We might have gained new ones, as well.  The election results--and especially Bob's loss--mean that the way forward is not as straight or direct; but it is still before us, and we will seize the opportunities that 2013 offers us.

For several years now, I have been collecting evidence of the atrocities committed against Hindus in Bangladesh and of the Bangladeshi government's complicity in them.  That complicity runs the gamut from actual participation in the atrocities and their coverup by members of the government, to the government's tacit approval of them through its refusal to prosecute.  Much of that evidence is presented in my book A Quiet Case of Ethnic Cleansing: The Murder of Bangladesh's Hindus.

Since its publication, however, I have gathered verified and verifiable evidence that the atrocities continue, as does Bangladesh's Awami League government's complicity.  I have obtained some of the evidence first-hand and some of it through human rights activists like Rabindra Ghosh.  (When the history of this terrible atrocity is written, including how it was stopped, the name of Rabindra Ghosh will be recognized as that of a true and self-less hero.  I am honored to call him a friend and colleague.)

Gathering and verifying that evidence--accumulating so much that the world can no longer remain silent and inert--and presenting it to organizations and individuals who can act is our sole focus and a goal I know we will reach soon.

Persecution of Hindus increasing in Bangladesh

When Sheikh Hasina and the Bangladeshi Awami League (BAL) took power in Bangladesh following a landslide victory in late December, a torrent of superficial commentaries suggested that the BAL would usher in a new era; one in which minorities no longer faced systematic and government-tolerated persecution and one in which the government opposed the growing power of Islamist radicals in Bangladesh. I recall being asked to participate in a conference call with Hindu activists in the country shortly after the election during which the latter's sentiments were: give them some time and they will do the right thing. On the other hand, I cautioned that the worst thing minorities could do now was lay down and be silent, that the BAL had no intention of changing the status quo and that if minorities fail to assert their rights from the start, they never will be recognized.

Ten months later, unfortunately, my prediction it turns out was the accurate one.

Despite repeated promises to do so, the government has made no concrete move to repeal the Vested Property Act, that law which empowers the Bangladeshi government to seize the land of non-Muslims and give it to Muslims. It also provides the legal and economic basis for the continued effort to eradicate Bangladesh's Hindu community: a community that has fallen from one third of the nation at partition (1947) to one fifth at independence (1971) to nine percent today.

Dozens of government-tolerated anti-Hindu actions were reported during the BAL's first two months in office. My organization was able to confirm at least 12 (1.5 every week) involving rape, murder, assault, land grabs, forced conversion, and religious desecration. In all cases, government officials (at several levels) participated in the actions and/or prevented their prosecution. In some cases, they interfered with recovering abducted minor Hindus.

This Spring saw an anti-Hindu pogrom carried out with government support in a Dhaka neighborhood just behind a police station. There were also at least three confirmed cases of abduction of young Hindus by Muslims and their (forced) conversion to Islam. Once again, the government prevented a fair and open investigation of the matters or the safe recovery of the victims. In several cases, the police ignored blatant evidence of break ins and other crimes.

Most recently, in a nine-day period this month (October 2009), I received evidence that the pace of anti-Hindu actions is accelerating. The Bangladeshi paper, The Daily Janakantha, reported at least seven cases of Hindu girls being lured to vulnerable spots where they were abducted and forcibly converted to Islam. According to human rights activist, Advocate Rabindra Ghosh and others, the police refused to investigate the matter or admit that any crimes were committed. This conforms with our previous experience that police and other government officials will not consider any conversion to Islam (forced or voluntary) anything other than an achievement worthy of their praise.

Bangladesh's Daily Samakal and the Bangladesh Minority Watch report this month that a Muslim mob attacked and destroyed a Hindu Temple to the god Shiva. They also destroyed its deities and other artifacts, and it should be noted that the Temple was recently repaired following previous attacks by Muslims. The attack took place in the Dhaka district, and police have not taken any action despite promises to do so.

Finally, in that same week, a young Hindu woman was abducted from her bed and taken to an open field where he six Muslim attackers raped her in turn. They brutalized her so badly that she is currently fighting for her life in a local hospital. (The attack took place in the Pabna District.) The woman's husband tried to stop his wife's abduction but was stabbed and beaten into unconsciousness. Formal charges have yet to be filed against any of the perpetrators.

When will the Awami League live up to its promises? We know the answer to that: never. The real question is when will the rest of the world realize that.

Bangladeshi Hindu Abducted, Forced to Convert to Islam

For most of us in the West, the notion of forced conversion seems to belong to a bygone age and a long discredited mentality. The sad fact, however, is that like the slave trade and other atrocities we have left in our past, forced conversion is alive and well even today. The Bangladesh Hindu, Buddhist, Christian Unity Council (BHBCUC) has reported a case of abduction and forced conversion in Bangladesh; and two human rights organizations, Global Human Rights Defence (GHRD)and Bangladesh Minority Watch (BDMW) have investigated the incident. All three groups have a history of credibility in these matters, as well as people on the ground that can confirm or refute allegations.

The case involves a Hindu woman named Koli Goswami. According to the BHBCUC report, at least five Muslim perpetrators including a government official broke into Koli's home at 12:45am on June 13, 2009. They vandalized the home and grabbed the 20-year-old-college student. When the girl tried to alert others by screaming, they covered her head and, as others started coming to her rescue, fired pistols in the air to scare them away. One of the alleged perpetrators, Touhidul Islam Bhuiya (Sumon) is currently facing murder charges in a separate case.

Yet, the Bangladeshi police have denied that any crime was committed in this case; which also allows Sumon to remain free. When GHRD and BDMW representatives visited the site, police told them, "It is not kidnapping. It is love affairs between kidnapper and victim." Kidnapper? Victim? That hardly sounds like a love affair. So, Bangladeshi police, as is standard in these matters (and they are not uncommon), have refused to pursue a case: despite physical evidence of a break-in at the family home; despite the video taped testimony of the family; despite the lodging of a complaint by the girl's uncle; and despite requests by the family for them to help locate and produce Koli.

Although I am investigating the matter further, the basic facts in this case (that is, the break in and abduction) are not in dispute. The police, too, have seen the physical evidence, as well as other material provided by BDMW's Rabindra Ghosh. The incident itself is a terrible crime, but making matters worse is the fact that it remains a common occurrence in Bangladesh. Victims are universally young women and girls, sometimes boys, of child bearing years or younger. The choice of victims is deliberate and as such, meets the fourth condition of genocide, as described in the international Convention for the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide: "Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group.

The active participation by a government official in the Koli Goswami forced conversion, as well as police refusal to prosecute the case, are consistent with other incidents of active government involvement and support for forcibly converting young minority members to Islam. It is also consistent with figures gathered during the period of Arab terror bombings in Israel. During that period, Arab terrorists disproportionately bombed places frequented by Israeli Jews of childbearing years or younger: children and even babies especially in Judea and Samaria, clubs like Mike’s Place in Tel Aviv, markets where young mothers shop, shopping malls, and so forth. What Islamists cannot gain because they are militarily weak and morally bankrupt, they try to gain through genocide.

And consider this: at the time of the India-Pakistan partition (1947), Hindus made up almost one third of the population in the territory known today as Bangladesh. Today, they are but nine percent. There can be little doubt that incidents such as that of Koli Goswami are part of a deliberate process that has caused that population decline; and if it is not stopped, we will witness an end to Bangladesh's minorities in our lifetimes.