Source: Religion News Service, August 29, 2024<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Amid a spike in violence against religious minorities in Bangladesh, a national council of Buddhists, Hindus, and Christians is renewing a campaign for the Muslim-majority South Asian nation to remove Islam as the state religion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In mid-July, student-led protests demanding reform of the country\u2019s job quota system turned violent, culminating in the collapse of former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina\u2019s government on August 5. After Hasina\u2019s resignation, the anger aimed at her government poured onto religious minorities, especially Hindus and members of Hasina\u2019s party, the secular Awami League, which is backed by much of the Hindu community.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The attacks on Hindu houses of worship, homes and businesses, as well as Awami League politicians, have resulted in the deaths of at least 650 people since the violence began, according to a report by the United Nations Human Rights Commission.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Bangladesh Hindu Buddhist Christian Unity Council, a human rights organization, argues that enshrining Islam as the state religion has been detrimental to the country\u2019s religious minorities and aspirations of greater democratic rule.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cAccording to the communalist and fundamentalist forces, Islam does not coexist with other religious faiths and beliefs and also contradicts democracy, in which they have no belief,\u201d said Monindra Kumar Nath, the council\u2019s joint general secretary.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The council said earlier this month that there were 1,045 cases of human rights violations against religious minorities between June and August.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Read the full story<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Source: Religion News Service, August 29, 2024 Amid a spike in violence against religious minorities in Bangladesh, a national council of Buddhists, Hindus, and Christians is renewing a campaign for the Muslim-majority South Asian nation to remove Islam as the state religion. In mid-July, student-led protests demanding reform of the country\u2019s job quota system turned … Continue reading Bangladesh: Hindu Buddhist Christian Council Pushes for Secular State<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13226","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-briefs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13226","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13226"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13226\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13227,"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13226\/revisions\/13227"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13226"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13226"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13226"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}