WASHINGTON and OTTAWA, ON, Aug. 7, 2024
/PRNewswire/ -- The disturbing and heart wrenching data,
visuals and testimony of Hindus under attack in their historic
homeland of Bangladesh, require
collective action. The Coalition of Hindus of North America (CoHNA) is urging immediate
intervention by the US State Department, the Department of Global
Affairs in Canada, the UN, and
other collective forces in order to prevent a selective genocide
and mass targeting of religious minorities.
Bangladeshi Hindus are being physically assaulted and killed. A
number of temples have been destroyed, homes and businesses of
Hindus systematically vandalized and even set on fire.
"Since this past week-well before the fall of the Sheikh
Hasina Government, I had started
receiving calls and messages for help," said a CoHNA volunteer from
Bangladesh who wishes to remain
anonymous to ensure their family is not targeted. "My friends and
family are traumatized and in fear of their lives. I will never
recover from the horribly graphic and stark images of torture and
terror that I have had shared with me and the calls for help where
I am unable to do anything. I am asking all those with influence to
speak up and ask for our safety and basic human rights."
The plight of Hindu women is especially worrisome given many
reports of abduction, rapes, and sexual violence. Amidst the
mind-numbing violence, there are several calls for exterminating
the Hindu population that hark back to the unfinished agenda of
Operation Searchlight in the 1971 Bengali Hindu Genocide.
"As a grassroots advocacy and civil rights organization based in
the US and Canada, we have Hindus
from different parts of the world who are volunteers, members, and
supporters. As such, since last week, we have been getting advance
warnings and calls for help when most of the world was focused on
the political turmoil," said Nikunj
Trivedi, President of CoHNA. "Haunted by the carnage we saw,
we decided to act, launching a campaign to gather and share the
information trickling out and enabling those who care for basic
human rights to easily share the same with their lawmakers.
Thousands have signed, but we need more to drive change among our
lawmakers."
CoHNA asks everyone to take action immediately:
- Join our Congressional Briefing on the Bangladesh violence on Monday, August 12, at 6 PM
EST by clicking here.
- Sign this letter to send a message to your lawmakers. Make them
aware of the carnage, call to follow up after the email and ask for
help for the religious minorities. So far, 50,000 emails have been
sent, but we need more.
- US residents click here.
- Canadian residents click here.
- If you are in Toronto, join a
vigil on August 10 to show your
support.
- Consider organizing a vigil in your town, Contact CoHNA for
support.
The Background
This latest spate of violence comes on the back of systemic
large scale violence periodically unleashed on Bangladeshi Hindus.
The scale, scope, and pattern of this slow genocide, has been
widely documented by human rights groups as well as American
lawmakers like late Sen. Ted Kennedy
and late Rep. Sheila Jackson
Lee.
In 1951 after the partition of the Indian Subcontinent, Hindus
constituted 22 percent of the population in the then East Pakistan. In 1974, after the creation of
Bangladesh, that number had fallen
to 13.75 percent and the downward trajectory continued despite the
formation of what was hailed as a new secular republic. Today,
Bangladeshi Hindus constitute less than 8 percent of the total
population.
The religious violence against Hindus is often camouflaged under
the broader turmoil, but the numbers don't lie. In 1971, a US State
Department Report noted that "more than 60% of the Bengali refugees
who fled to India were Hindus,"
despite being less than 18 percent of the population in
East Pakistan at that time. Yet,
popular media at the time depicted (and continues to depict it) as
primarily differences over language. The disproportionate violence
directed today at this minority community is part of the same trend
- only this time we are hearing it presented as party
preferences.
About CoHNA
CoHNA is a grassroots level advocacy and civil rights
organization dedicated to improving the understanding of Hinduism
in North America by working on
matters related to the Hindu community and by educating the public
about Hindu heritage and tradition. For more information, please
visit https://cohna.org or follow us
on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and
on Instagram.
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SOURCE Coalition of Hindus of North
America