The United States Department of State in its annual report on international religious freedom made allegations that law enforcement and government officials had stood by as hundreds of persons attacked the Ahmadiya community during its annual convention at Ahmednagar in Panchagarh district of Bangladesh.
Referring to leaders of the religious minority communities, it also said that the government frequently used laws such as the Digital Security Act, recently replaced by the Cyber Security Act, to target religious minority groups for 鈥榟urting religious sentiments鈥� of the Muslim聽聽 population.
鈥業n March, Ahmadiya Muslim leaders said that law enforcement and government officials stood by as hundreds of persons attacked the Ahmadiya community during its annual convention in Ahmednagar.聽 The violence resulted in聽 two deaths, dozens of injuries, and the looting and destruction of hundreds of Ahmadiya houses, one Ahmadiya mosque and an Ahmadiya medical clinic,鈥� said the 2023 Report on International Religious Freedom, which was made available on the US state department鈥檚 official website.
In the aftermath, police filed cases against thousands of unnamed individuals and arrested more than 200, including the alleged instigators of the violence.
鈥楲eaders of religious minority communities continued to say that the government frequently used laws such as the Digital Security Act to target members of religious minority groups, particularly Hindus, for 鈥渉urting the religious sentiments鈥� of Muslim populations,鈥� the report said.
In almost all cases, courts took harsher measures against members of religious minorities for posting allegedly derogatory contents on Facebook than against the perpetrators of retaliatory violence, it observed, adding that several cases followed this pattern during the year.
The report, however, mentioned that the constitution designates Islam as the state religion but upholds the principle of secularism.
It prohibits religious discrimination and provides for equality for all religions, it said, adding that the family law, enforced in secular courts, contains separate provisions for different religious groups.
Referring to Muslim leaders, the report said that the government continued to influence the appointment and removal of imams and provide guidance on the content of sermons to imams throughout the country.
One organisation which monitoring incidents across the country stated there were 22 incidents of violence against religious minorities from January to December in which one person from the Ahmadiya community Muslim was killed and 62 Ahmadiyas and 19 Hindus were injured.聽
Human rights NGOs and some religious leaders continued to report harassment and social isolation of, and physical violence against, converts to Christianity from Islam and Hinduism, it mentioned.
The US government estimates the total population at 167.2 million (mid-year 2023).聽
According to the 2022 national government census, Sunni Muslims constitute approximately 91 per cent of the population and Hindus approximately 8 per cent.聽 The remainder of the population includes Christians, with approximately 4,00,000 Roman Catholics, approximately one million Theravada-Hinayana Buddhists and small numbers of Shia Muslims, Ahmadiya Muslims, Baha鈥檌s, animists, International Society for Krishna Consciousness members, agnostics, and atheists, the report mentioned.
Hindu leaders continued to criticise the government for failing to adequately punish the perpetrators of anti-Hindu communal violence during Durga Puja celebrations in 2021, it noted.聽聽
Bauls, a minority religious and cultural group that combines elements of Sufism, Hinduism, and Tantra practices and is best known for its songs and poems, continued to face violence.
Attacks and intimidation against them were common phenomena, often spurred by religious fundamentalists, the report quoted Baul leaders as saying.
In March, the media reported that no one had been imprisoned for five attacks on Bauls鈥� meeting places since 2015, including an attack on February 7 in which unknown individuals set fire to a Baul meeting house in Chuadanga district, it mentioned.聽聽聽
