DHAKA, Bangladesh (AP) — Bangladesh’s largest minority rights group accused the country’s interim government on Thursday of failing to protect religious and ethnic minorities from attacks and harassment, a claim the government has denied.
The Bangladesh Hindu Buddhist Christian Unity Council said the government headed by Nobel Peace Prize laureate Muhammad Yunus is also using state institutions to suppress minority groups. Yunus took over after a student-led uprising last year in which hundreds of people died forced former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to flee to India on Aug. 5, ending her 15-year rule.
The council earlier said 2,010 incidents of communal violence took place across the Muslim-majority country between Aug. 4 and 20. The Yunus-led government disputed the claim, saying that most of the incidents were caused by “political reasons” and not by communal issues. Traditionally, Hindus and other members of minority groups have been seen as supporters of Hasina’s Bangladesh Awami League party.
In a news conference on Thursday, the council reiterated its claim of earlier attacks and said 174 new incidents of communal violence had taken place between Aug. 21 and Dec. 31 last year in which 23 members of minority groups were killed and nine women were raped. It said other incidents involved arson, vandalism, looting and forcible takeover of property and businesses. It said at least 15 members of minority groups were either arrested or tortured for allegedly undermining Islam.
Manindra Kumar Nath, the group’s acting general secretary, accused the government of manipulating state institutions to harass people from minority groups.
“We have observed that the interim government has begun using various important state institutions to carry out discriminatory actions against minorities. This is unexpected and undesirable from a government that was established based on the anti-discrimination student movement,” he said. Apurba Kumar Bhattacharjee, a lawyer representing Prabhu, said that they would appeal the decision.
The court rejected an earlier request for bail made while Prabhu didn’t have lawyers. Lawyers who sought to represent him at that hearing said they were threatened or intimidated, and many of them are facing charges related to the death of a Muslim lawyer during clashes outside the court when Prabhu appeared there shortly after being arrested in Bangladesh’s capital, Dhaka, in November. For Thursday’s hearing, 11 lawyers traveled from Dhaka, arriving and leaving with a security escort.
Hindu groups and other minority groups in Bangladesh and abroad have criticized the interim government led by Nobel peace laureate Muhammad Yunus for undermining their security. Yunus and his supporters said that reports of attacks on Hindus and other groups since August have been exaggerated.
Prabhu’s arrest came as tensions spiked following reports of the desecration of the Indian flag in Bangladesh, with some burning it and others laying it on the floor for people to step on. Protesters in India responded in kind.
Prabhu is a spokesman for the Bangladesh Sammilito Sanatan Jagaran Jote group. He was also associated with the International Society for Krishna Consciousness, widely known as the Hare Krishna movement.
Radharamn Das, vice president and spokesman of the group in Kolkata, the capital of India’s West Bengal state, told the television station India Today that Prabhu’s health is deteriorating. Das said that the jailed Hindu leader “has become a face of minorities in Bangladesh. The minorities see him as a ray of hope. He represents their voice.”
DHAKA, Bangladesh (AP) — Bangladesh’s largest minority rights group accused the country’s interim government on Thursday of failing to protect religious and ethnic minorities from attacks and harassment, a claim the government has denied.