The UAE is facing sharp criticism over its inhumane practice of the enforced disappearance of members of a minority religious group in the latest of a series of reports highlighting the Gulf state’s abysmal human rights record. According to Human Rights Watch, the UAE authorities have forcibly disappeared at least four Pakistani men since October 2020 and deported at least six others without explanation. The moves are, apparently, based solely on the religious background of the men, claims HRW in its latest report on the arbitrary targeting of the UAE’s Pakistani Shia residents. The numbers of people affected are likely…
Author: Priya Saha
Priya Saha
Executive Director at Human Rights Congress for Bangladesh Minorities | Priya Saha is the Executive Director of Human Rights Congress for Bangladesh Minorities (HRCBM). HRCBM is an NGO in Special Consultative Status with the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations.
AFP Dhaka, Bangladesh ● Wed, June 23, 2021 2021-06-23 19:15 0 ef61debc7c9ec5e1a7dfe462b7be7436 2 World social-media,Facebook,emoji Free A prominent Muslim Bangladeshi cleric with a huge online following has issued a fatwa against people using Facebook’s “haha” emoji to mock people. The Muslim cleric, Ahmadullah has more than three million followers on Facebook and YouTube. He regularly appears on television shows to discuss religious issues in the Muslim-majority country. On Saturday he posted a three-minute video in which he discussed the mocking of people on Facebook and issued a fatwa, an Islamic edict, explaining how it is “totally haram (forbidden)”…
With no priest to minister and no faithful to pray, Dhaka’s Armenian church has one last parishioner: a Hindu caretaker.With no priest to minister and no faithful to pray, an Armenian church in Bangladesh has one last parishioner: a Hindu caretaker doing his “sacred duty” to preserve a relic of the city’s former commercial elite. Shankar Ghosh makes the sign of the cross before opening the entrance of the striking white and yellow edifice, built 240 years ago in the capital Dhaka. Back then, the city was home to hundreds of Armenians, a diaspora that traced its roots in the…
As the then director of All India Radio’s External Services, UL Baruah chronicled the tumultuous events that led to the birth of Bangladesh in a series of commentaries aired on the Urdu, Pashto, Sindhi, Punjabi, Bengali and West Asian services of AIR. The dispatches have been put together in a collection in the run-up to the 50th anniversary of Bangladesh. An excerpt:The Shadow of East Pakistan *President and Chief Martial Law Administrator of Pakistan, Mr. Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, on Wednesday addressed a meeting of the judges of the Pakistan Supreme Court, the High Court of Punjab, civil judges and lawyers…
ANI | Updated: Jun 22, 2021 06:48 IST London [UK], June 21 (ANI): On the issue of Ahmadi Muslims being a routine target of blasphemy laws in Pakistan, Knox Thames, a former US adviser on religious minorities in Asia, said that it has become quite dangerous to be an Ahmadi in Pakistan.Thames, a visiting expert at the US Institute of Peace, said at a podcast with Peace for Asia that Ahmadis, who had left from colonial India to Pakistan during the partition in 1947, view themselves as within Islam and claim their Muslim identity as a critical part of their…
A Sunamganj court yesterday granted bail to the prime accused in cases filed in connection with the attack on Hindu houses in Naogaon village of the district’s Shalla upazila on March 17. After hearing the bail plea, Sunamganj District and Sessions Judge Md Wahiduzzaman Sikder granted bail to Shahidul Islam Swadhin, said Selim Nawaj, court inspector of Sunamganj police. For all latest news, follow The Daily Star’s Google News channel. A Facebook post by Jhumon Das Apon of Naogaon village criticising Hefajat-e-Islam leader Mamunul Haque allegedly led to the mayhem in the village, where about 90 Hindu houses were vandalised…
এটিএন নিউজে সরাসরি সম্প্রচারিত বৈঠকি সঞ্চালনা করছেন মুন্নী সাহা। তিনি বলেন, … Source link
Members of Bangladesh minorities were reported to participate in the annual protest against making Islam the official religion of the state. The International Christian Concern (ICC) said that religious minorities in Bangladesh such as Hindus, Buddhists, and Christians, have gathered last June 9 for the “Black Day” annual protest for the declaration of Islam as the state religion. As per ICC, the Bangladesh Constitution was amended on June 9, 1988 through the adoption of the eight amendment that declares Islam as Bangladesh’s official religion. Religious minorities have gathered since then to protest its declaration. ICC cited an interview by Asia News with…
With more displaced people around the world than ever before, digital tools are helping them preserve their culture and stories By Rina Chandran BANGKOK, June 20 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – Solima Khatun has been a refugee six times in her long life. She first left her home in Myanmar during the Second World War, and most recently in 2017 – when relatives had to carry her as they fled to Bangladesh with nearly one million other Rohingyas. Khatun – who is believed to be aged over 100 – lives along with some 700,000 Rohingya refugees in Kutupalong, the world’s largest…
Bangladesh Jatiya Hindu Mahajote organises a press conference on Saturday at Dhaka Reporters Unity in the capital to press home their demands. — New Age Photo Leaders of Hindu community in Bangladesh on Saturday demanded the construction of at least one model temple in each of the upazilas across the country and demanded to allocate at least Tk5000 crore more for religious minorities in the national budget for 2021-22 financial year. They made the demand in a press conference organized by Bangladesh Jatiya Hindu Mahajote at Dhaka Reporters Unity in the capital where the organization secretary general Gobinda Chandra Pramanik…
A general view of one of the 50 model mosques inaugurated on June 10 as part of a government initiative to build 560 such structures across the country Dhaka Tribune The model mosque program is a way to preach the true meaning of Islam, its values and stand against extremism and militancy, says the govt With religious intolerance and hatred causing violence in Bangladesh and around the world, the government has come up with yet another initiative to uphold religious harmony and peace by spreading the true essence of Islam and its spiritual practices.New model mosque-cum Islamic cultural centres currently…
Photo Credit: IANS IANSLive Dhaka, June 17 (IANS) A recruiter of banned militant outfit Ansar al Islam has been arrested from Bangladesh’s border Naogaon district by the Anti-Terrorism Unit (ATU), police said on Thursday. Sarwar Hossain alias Alif, 25, from Atrai upazila in Naogaon, was arrested on Wednesday night after police found him propagating militancy online and trying to recruit new militants for the banned outfit, ATU’s SP, Media and Awareness, Aslam Khan, told IANS.A case was filed against him under the Anti-Terrorism Act with Naogaon Sadar Police Station.On June 12, police’s Counter Terrorism and Transnational Crime (CTTC) unit had…