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Lynching of a Hindu in Bangladesh Fans Fears of Rising Intolerance
Muslim co-workers accused the garment factory worker of blasphemy and dragged him into the street, where an angry mob murdered him.
Muslim co-workers accused the garment factory worker of blasphemy and dragged him into the street, where an angry mob beat and murdered him.
It is nothing new that Bangladesh’s Sunni muslime majority has openly persecuted minorities, especially Hindus, since the country became an independent state in 1974. However this case is particularly shocking. The victim was initially detained by police only to be later handed over to an angry mob. He was dragged through the streets brutally beaten and ultimately set on fire while still alive.
Bangladesh’s Hindu minority has decreased from around 14% in 1974 to about 7% today. This is a rare development, as the global average population growth during the same period was an increase of roughly 110%. This contrast illustrates how difficult life has been for Hindus in a Sunni Muslim dominant country, where they have endured some of the worst forms of persecution one could imagine. Although there are tensions in India between the Hindu and Muslim populations, it cannot be ignored that muslim population growth there is above both the regional and global average, showing no meaningful negative effects on overall population development. In addition, the Indian government is far more active in protecting its people than what can be observed in Bangladesh, where the government indirectly supports the Sunni population persecuting minorities.
For comparison, the Palestinian population, which is often cited as an example of a group enduring severe atrocities at the hands of Israel, has increased from approximately 1.3 million to 5.5 million in the mentioned period, representing a growth of about 425%, which is also nearly 4 times above the global average.
I hope that the situation for minorities in Bangladesh, as well as in Pakistan and Afghanistan, will improve in the coming years, but I highly doubt that anything will change. The governments seem uninterested in protecting minorities and do not take steps to restrain their sunni muslime populations. Moreover, it appears that they deliberately allow these populations to target unwanted groups, letting others be persecuted without the government having to dirty its own hands or face accusations of religious intolerance.
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