Press Release

The ICHRRF Board has joined the chorus of Human Rights watchers globally who are calling for the protection of Bangladesh’s beleaguered Hindu minority that is facing a massive spike in a long-running saga of persecution. This current rampage by Islamist-leaning mobs against their Hindu neighbors comes in the wake of the recent violent coup against that country’s elected Prime Minister Sheikh Haseena, who has had to flee the country into exile.

Out of Bangladesh’s 64 districts, 45 districts have already witnessed targeted attacks against Hindu homes, businesses and temples in just the past week. Many have been killed and women raped, and their mutilated corpses sadistically displayed as crowds gathered to cheer and record the spectacle on their cellphones. The life savings of Hindu families has been wiped out in acts of arson.

At the time of its separation from India in 1947, the Hindu population of Bangladesh (then East Pakistan) was approximately 25%. By the time of its split from Pakistan and formation of Bangladesh in 1971, the Hindu population had already been halved to 13%. The ethnic cleansing didn’t stop, and today that proportion stands at 8% of a 170 million population.

A refugee crisis is looming as around 800 Hindu Bangladeshis have tried to flee over the border to neighboring India, marking the trickle before the flood. The situation today mirrors the horrors of 1971, when millions of refugees fled across that border, as 3 million mostly Hindu Bangladeshis were subjected to a genocide by the then Pakistan Army, and between 200,000 and 400,000 women systematically raped in public. ICHRRF urgently appeals to governments in the region and across the world to intervene before it is too late.

Post-independence from Pakistan, violence against Hindus by the Muslim majority escalated in 1975, after the assassination of Mujibur Rehman, the country’s founder. Bangladeshi Hindus attempted to organize themselves in self-defense. However, they could not achieve any sustained support nationally or internationally. The mistakes of the past must not be repeated today, and a permanent solution found to end this interminable decades-long genocide and ethnic cleansing.

Therefore, the ICHRRF Board of Directors puts Charter of Demands before the international community, UN, UNHCR, EU, European Council of Human rights, and the US Governments to take corrective actions to prevent ongoing persecution, oppression, ethnic cleansing and massacre of Bangladeshi Hindus arising out of military coup in that country.

1. The US Government must immediately reverse the visa cancellation of democratically elected Prime Minister of Bangladesh Sheikh Hasina Wazed.

2. The US government must explicitly and unequivocally condemn the military coup in Bangladesh that toppled the elected Prime Minister and her government.

3. The US government must immediately impose punitive sanctions on the coup plotters in Bangladesh, Jihadi terrorists and their political and financial backers.

4. The US government must immediately suspend the preferential trade access to Bangladesh exports to the US without any tariffs.

5. The US government must inform the military installed interim government of Bangladesh that is mut provide complete security to Hindu Temples, institutions and Hindu civilian population. The US must exhort the interim government in Bangladesh to prosecute the Jihadi terrorists in that country who are killing Hindu citizens of Bangladesh and committing sexual atrocities on Bangladeshi Hindu women.

6. The US government must put pressure on the military installed interim government in Bangladesh to conduct free and fair, multi-party elections (inclusive of Awami league and Sheikh Hasina Wazed, the ousted PM) within next 90 days under international supervision (UN, EU, UNHCR, and human rights organizations.

7. The ICHRRF demands that the UN immediately suspend the participation of Bangladeshi Armed forces in the international peacekeeping operations under the aegis of the UN. ICHRRF further demands that the UN must cease any further payments to the Bangladeshi government for international peace keeping operations and that the frozen funds/asses must be used to provide compensation to Hindu victims of massacre by Jihadi elements.

8. The ICHRRF demands that the US government announce an immediate grant of $10 billion for the purposes of the relief, recovery, rehabilitations and compensation to the Hindu victims of ongoing slaughter by Jamat-e-Islami in Bangladesh.

9. The ICHRRF demands that the coup leaders and their acolytes who have indulged in religiously targeted violence, mayhem and sexual crimes and atrocities must be brought to justice at the International Criminal Court in the Hague, Netherlands.

10. The ICHRRF demands that the UN General Secretary, the UNHCR, The EU and the European council of Human rights must send a fact finding delegation comprising of eminent jurists, human rights activists and advocates with complete access to the victims of violence and persecution and to document their statement sand gather evidence for future prosecutions under an international criminal tribunal.