Does The World Care About The Islamic Atrocities In Bangladesh?

Hindus Are Being Slaughtered Under the New Yunus Government

I remained silent when last August Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s democratically elected government was ousted, and activist Muhammad Yunus was installed.

When she was forced out of office, Hasina was the only female head of state in the Muslim world. She tried to guide her country to be a secular society amidst Islamic extremists. Now she’s gone. She was elected five different times and served as Prime Minister for more than 20 years.

She was defiantly in favor or democracy and against autocratic rule. Her life was shaped by the military’s 1975 assassination of her father, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. Her father led the Bangladesh independence movement against Pakistan and was affectionately called the “Father of the Nation.” Hasina not only lost her father then, but her mother, three brothers along with other family members. Her enmity for dictatorship shaped her life.

In her place has come Muhammad Yunus. This Bangladeshi political activist has had a long history of attempting to do good. But he also has a dark side. He’s been accused of alleged unethical conduct. And his relationship with Bill and Hillary Clinton has been the subject of controversy, including, as the purported leader of the poor, amassing enough funds to give an extraordinary gift of upwards of $300,000 to the Clinton Foundation.

Despite the undemocratic nature of her expulsion last summer, I waited to see how Yunus might govern, hoping the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize winner could act to improve the South Asian country.

Now, however, my gravest fears about Bangladesh under Yunus are unfolding. His new government is widely charged with permitting atrocities against Bangladesh’s ethnic minorities, particularly against Hindus. He is also being accused of transforming the country, which has been a strictly secular Muslim country, into an Islamic state.

Last November, his government officially reported 2,200 cases of violence occurred against the country’s ethnic minorities. The numbers are considered low. The violence appears to have been largely waged by radical Islamist parties and especially by the country’s militant Jamaat-e-Islami party.

In contrast, in 2023 while Hasina ruled, only 302 cases of violence were reported against minorities.

A short time after taking office Yunus unilaterally legalized the radical Jamaat-e-Islami party, which has been banned from taking part in national elections since 2013, after the Election Commission cancelled its registration due to its extremism. The ruling was upheld by the Supreme Court in 2023.

Jamaat-e-Islami openly hopes to turn Bangladesh into an Islamic state governed by Sharia Law. The party is considered one of the main perpetrators of violence against Hindus, although other Islamic groups have attacked them too.

Yunus also immediately released violent prisoners belonging to Islamic groups including Ansarullah Bangla Team (ABT)along with those of Jamaat-e-Islami. ABT is directly tied to al-Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent.

Yunus has defended his release of the prisoners saying there was “no specific evidence of involvement with terrorism and violence.”

A Bangladeshi authority, however, speaking anonymously to the Economic Times of India, told the news outlet, “it is evident that Jamaat-e-Islami is influencing the agenda of the interim government in a substantial fashion.”

By December 30, 2024, the attacks on Hindus and others became so severe that the UK government revised its travel guidance, cautioning that “terrorists are likely to try to carry out attacks” in Bangladesh as it advised citizens against “all but essential travel.”

Dr. Sumita SenGupta, the founder of the Arts4All Foundation and a sponsor of a recent protest rally outside the U.S. Capitol Building in Washington, D.C. warned about “the dire situation” in Bangladesh. She noted that “religious and ethnic minorities face extinction unless action is taken to de-escalate tensions, stop the imprisonment of religious minorities, and put an end to the violent attacks, inhumane treatment, mass atrocities, and extremism.”

Adding to the increasing human rights crisis was the government’s arrest of a popular Hindu monk and community activist on the flimsy charge that he and his followers had disrespected the Bangladesh flag. After his arrest, protests erupted in Dhaka, the country’s capital, as well as in other cities.

Barry Gardiner, a British Labour Member of Parliament describes the situation in alarming terms, saying the country is "on a knife edge.”

Khanderao Kand, the president of the Foundation for India and Indian Diaspora Studies has charged that “Bangladesh is rapidly descending into a radicalized Islamic state, all under the watch of the US, the State Department, and the UN, who must act now to restore democracy and protect minorities.”

The crisis over Yunus’ governance has further worsened as a prominent Hindu monk, Chinmoy Krishna Das, was arrested and charged with an obviously trumped-up charge of “sedition” because he and his followers disrespected the Bangladesh flag.

Eleven Supreme Court lawyers volunteered to represent Das. After a 30-minute hearing on January 2, bail was summarily denied.

Two other monks, Adipurush Shyam Das and Ranganath Das Brahmachari, were detained on November 29 after visiting him in custody.

His arrest has caused an uproar among British and Indian politicians. Bob Blackman, a Conservative British Member of Parliament condemned the persecution of Das, and highlighted his imprisonment, "Today, I condemn the attacks on Hindus in Bangladesh and the imprisonment of Chinmoy Krishna Das,” he said from the floor of the Parliament.

Indian Congress Party member Priyanka Gandhi, a member of the politically prominent Ghandhi family and a trustee of the Rajiv Gandhi Foundation, described the arrest as "extremely worrying." She urged the government to take steps to ensure the safety and security of minorities in Bangladesh.

Political retribution against Hasina’s Awami League (AL) appears underway as well. Deutsch Welle, reporting from the nation’s capital of Dhaka, reported “Several leaders of Hasina’s Awami League have died in custody during the interim government’s rule, sparking serious controversy.”

The reporter noted that four Awami League leaders have allegedly died of “heart attacks” while in custody in the Bogura Prison and that “the total number of AL members and activists who have died in police custody over the last four months (has risen) to at least ten.

This odious set of developments should have raised alarm bells within the Biden administration. The administration, however - only after it was prodded by shocked Hindu-Americans in the United States - issued a tepid statement that the President and Yunus “expressed their commitment to respecting and protecting the human rights of all people, regardless of religion.”

Yunus has many liberal friends in the West. Last September 198 global elites signed a congratulatory letter published in the Washington Post that extolled him for taking power, stating, “We the undersigned are excited to publicly share our congratulations and heartfelt good wishes to Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus.”

They added, “As Professor Yunus has said, Bangladesh is now enjoying its second liberation”, noting, “We have been proud to have supported Professor Yunus over the years. It is the beginning of an exciting new dawn for Bangladesh.”

The signatories were led by many Western liberal stars including former President Obama, Al Gore, Arianna Huffington, Sir. Richard Branson, along with a number of liberal American billionaires.

The letter also was signed by scores of former UN and World Bank officials and unsavory figures such as Ukraine’s former corrupt communist leader Leonid Kuchma as well as the Secretary General of the Arab League.

It seems his friends may have a bit of amnesia about Yunus’ checkered past. He has faced many charges of improprieties about his management of Grameen Bank, which wasn’t a private bank, but a state-chartered institution.

After facing many accusations of improper financial transactions, the government ousted him from the bank using a technicality. The move was later upheld by the country’s Supreme Court.

Yunus also faced charges of embezzling $2 million from a worker’s funds of Grameen Telecom, of which he had a major stake. He has vigorously denied all the charges.

And the man who claimed to be an advocate for the poor also has founded two American well-endowed foundations, Grameen America and the Grameen Foundation. Both hold combined assets of $382 million, according to according to the latest details from Guidestar, the premier American transparency reporting organization of nonprofits. His personal net worth aside from his foundations is estimated to be $10 million.

Hindus in the United States also are raising serious doubts about the human rights catastrophe that’s unfolding in the country under Yunus.

In a dramatic “Ask Yunus Why” campaign, launched last month, Hindu-Americans in Silicon Valley launched a pointed campaign to raise awareness about anti-Hindu violence in Bangladesh. The campaign features billboards and digital ads across the San Francisco Bay Area upbraiding Yunus and urging American leadership to demand human rights protection in Bangladesh.

When her family was assassinated, Hasina fled to India where she was given refuge by none other than Indira Ghandhi, then that country’s first female head of state.

She now is living in exile once again in India. It’s quite unknown when, if ever, she will be allowed to return.

Will the international community rise up to force a halt to the atrocities? At the moment, it appears unlikely.