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Bangladesh has rejected New Delhi's charge that the recent killing of a Hindu leader was part of a pattern of systematic persecution of minorities in that country. Body of Hindu community leader Bhabesh Chandra Roy, 58, a resident of Basudebpur village of Dinajpur district in north Bangladesh, was recovered on Thursday night. His son has claimed Roy was allegedly abducted from his home in the village, about 330 kilometres northwest of Dhaka, and beaten to death. It is unfortunate that the death of Mr Bhabesh Chandra Roy has been described as part of a 'pattern of systematic persecution' of Hindu minorities under the interim government, interim government chief Muhammad Yunus' press secretary Shafiqul Alam told the state-run Bangladesh Sangbad Sangstha (BSS) news agency late Monday. Alam, who is currently accompanying Yunus to an international conference in Qatar, said Bangladesh is not a country where one would find government-sponsored systematic discrimination against ...
Every day over the past few weeks, the Pentagon has faced questions from angry lawmakers, local leaders and citizens over the removal of military heroes and historic mentions from Defense Department websites and social media pages after it purged online content that promoted women or minorities. In response, the department has scrambled to restore a handful of those posts as their removals have come to light. While the pages of some well-known veterans, including baseball and civil rights icon Jackie Robinson, are now back up on Pentagon websites, officials warn that many posts tagged for removal in error may be gone forever. The restoration process has been so hit or miss that even groups that the administration has said are protected, like the Tuskegee Airmen, the first Black military pilots who served in a segregated World War II unit, still have deleted pages that as of Saturday had not been restored. This past week chief, Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said in a video that ..
The interim government of Professor Muhammad Yunus refuted US National Intelligence Director Tulsi Gabbard's remarks on the alleged persecution of minority communities in Bangladesh saying her comments were not based on any evidence or specific allegations. "They (Gabbard's comments) paint an entire nation with a broad and unjustified brush," the chief adviser's office said on a verified Facebook post at around midnight Monday. It said Gabbard's statement in an Indian TV channel was "misleading and damaging to the image and reputation of Bangladesh, a nation whose traditional practice of Islam has been famously inclusive and peaceful and that has made remarkable strides in its fight against extremism and terrorism". The US spy chief, now in India, earlier on Monday said the longtime unfortunate persecution, killing, and abuse of religious minorities like Hindus, Buddhists, Christians, and others has been a major area of concern for the US government and President Trump and his ...
Union Minister for Parliamentary Affairs and Minority Affairs Kiren Rijiju on Thursday stated that minorities in India are the "luckiest people", as the country provides exclusive schemes and welfare programmes for them, unlike anywhere else in the world. Addressing the regional review meeting and training workshop on the Pradhan Mantri Jan Vikas Karyakram (PMJVK) for the states and union territories of the Southern Region here, he alleged that some people are pushing a false narrative suggesting that minorities are unsafe in India. "There are people who are creating some of the false narratives that minorities are not safe in India, some people keep spreading the message that there is discrimination against the minority communities, which is completely false," he said. "On the contrary, minorities are the luckiest people in India because other schemes are available for minority communities, and there are separate schemes and special programmes for them. No where in the world is the
Groups representing some of South Africa's white minority responded Saturday to a plan by President Donald Trump to offer them refugee status and resettlement in the United States by saying: thanks, but no thanks. The plan was detailed in an executive order Trump signed Friday that stopped all aid and financial assistance to South Africa as punishment for what the Trump administration said were rights violations by the government against some of its white citizens. The Trump administration accused the South African government of allowing violent attacks on white Afrikaner farmers and introducing a land expropriation law that enables it to seize ethnic minority Afrikaners' agricultural property without compensation. The South African government has denied there are any concerted attacks on white farmers and has said that Trump's description of the new land law is full of misinformation and distortions. Afrikaners are descended from mainly Dutch, but also French and German colonial .
The treatment of minorities in Bangladesh is a matter of concern for India and New Delhi hopes that Dhaka will take action for their safety, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar said in the Lok Sabha on Friday. The minister said India hopes that the new dispensation in Bangladesh will settle down to a mutually beneficial stable relationship with India. Jaishankar said treatment of minorities in Bangladesh has been a source of concern as there have been multiple incidents of attacks on them. "We have drawn their attention to our concerns. Recently foreign secretary visited Dhaka. This subject came up in his meetings. And it is our expectation that in its own interests, Bangladesh will take action for the safety of minorities," he said during the Question Hour. The minister said India has a good history of development projects in Bangladesh. "In fact when we speak about the neighbourhood first policy, almost every neighbouring country with the exception of Pakistan and China, we h
The United States has said that it wants India and Bangladesh to resolve their differences peacefully. State Department spokesperson Matthew Miler said this at his daily news conference on Tuesday. "We want to see all parties resolve their disagreements peacefully," Miler said, responding to a question on the recent visit of India's foreign secretary to Bangladesh. During his visit early this week, Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri conveyed New Delhi's "concerns" over the safety and security of minorities in Bangladesh. "I have underlined India's desire to work closely with the interim government of Bangladesh. At the same time, we also had the opportunity to discuss certain recent developments and issues, and I conveyed our concerns, including those related to the safety and welfare of minorities," Misri told reporters in Dhaka at the end of his visit.
An influential Indian-American organisation has urged US President Joe Biden and President-elect Donald Trump to call on the government of Bangladesh to protect the minority Hindu community in the country. In separate letters to Biden and Trump, the Foundation for India and Indian Diaspora Studies (FIIDS) on Wednesday expressed grave concern over the escalating human rights violations against religious minorities in Bangladesh and the recent arrest of Hindu spiritual leader Chinmoy Krishna Das Brahmachari. Bangladesh's minority Hindus have faced over 200 attacks, including those on their temples, since the fall of Sheikh Hasina's Awami League government on August 5, according to the FIIDS. Das was arrested on Monday in a sedition case and later denied bail by a court, triggering protests by community members in various locations, including the capital Dhaka and the port city of Chattogram. He was a member of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON) and was recen
PDP chief Mehbooba Mufti on Tuesday said it was "disheartening" that the country's largest minority was facing "unprecedented threats" as it celebrated Constitution Day. The People's Democratic Party (PDP) supremo referred to the violence in Uttar Pradesh's Sambhal, where four people died during protests against a court-ordered survey of a Mughal-era mosque. The government on Tuesday kick-started yearlong celebrations to mark the 75th anniversary of the adoption of the Constitution. "Today, as we celebrate Constitution Day, it is disheartening to see the largest minority in our country facing unprecedented threats. Their dignity, lives, livelihoods and places of worship are under attack, contradicting the Constitution's guarantee of equal rights and dignity for every citizen, regardless of their background," the former Jammu and Kashmir chief said in a post on X. The violence in Sambhal, where four people died, "is a painful reminder of this harsh reality", she said. "This trend o