Muslims in Bangladesh torch Buddhist temples over Facebook image

AMRITSAR, India -- Hundreds of angry Muslims in southeast Bangladesh torched at least 10 Buddhist temples and dozens of homes Sunday after alleging that a Buddhist man insulted Islam on his Facebook page, authorities said.

The protest gained momentum late Saturday in the area of Cox’s Bazar about 200 miles from the capital of Dhaka when Muslims, claiming that a Facebook page showed a burned copy of the Koran, headed to several Buddhist villages in the area.

Although there have been periodic clashes between the majority Muslim population and Hindus, tension is relatively rare with Buddhists, who make up less than 1% of Bangladesh’s 150 million people.

Authorities said extra security forces were called in to restore order after the mob burned and vandalized more than 100 homes.

"We brought the situation under control before dawn and imposed restrictions on public gatherings," Salim Mohammad Jahangir, Cox's Bazar district police superintendent, told local media. 

Analysts said this clash was unfortunate and disturbing given a general pattern of tolerance of religious minorities in Bangladesh, which gained its independence from Pakistan in 1971.

“This comes as a real surprise, and I feel sadness that this happened,” said Manzoor Hasan, advisor to the Institute of Governance Studies at Dhaka’s BRAC University. “Generally, not just with Buddhists, but the small Christian community and relatively larger Hindu community, as a society we’ve been tolerant and respectful of each other’s religions and ways of conducting ourselves.”

Tensions have increased in recent months, however, over a crisis in neighboring Myanmar involving clashes between the majority Buddhist population and members of the minority stateless Rohingya Muslim community, in some ways a mirror image of Sunday’s attacks.

Many people in predominantly Muslim Bangladesh also have been angered recently by a low-budget film called "Innocence of Muslims" that was made in California and mocks the prophet Muhammad. It has sparked protests across the Islamic world.

“Generally, there is extra sensitivity at this moment, not just in Bangladesh, but in other countries,” Hasan said. “We see people taking advantage of this, and there are copy-cat tendencies. The population as a whole needs to be far more vigilant in protecting minorities.… We all need to be a bit more careful and circumspect so we don’t incite sensitivities.”

Bangladesh's English-language Daily Star newspaper reported that the Buddhist who allegedly posted the offensive image on Facebook mistakenly tagged it on his Facebook profile and that his account was closed soon after violence erupted even as police escorted him and his mother to safety.

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Photo: The Shima Bihar Buddhist temple at Ramu, about 200 miles southeast of the capital of Dhaka, was burned Sunday after thousands of rioters attacked Buddhist temples and homes in southeastern Bangladesh over a photo deemed offensive to Islam was posted on Facebook. Credit: AFP / Getty Images

 

 

Aid agencies in Bangladesh told to stop Rohingya aid

This post has been updated. See the note below for details.

Three aid agencies reportedly have been asked to halt their activities in Bangladesh because their helping hand is encouraging Rohingya refugees to cross from Myanmar into the country.

The three international groups, identified in news reports as Doctors Without Borders, Action Against Hunger and Muslim Aid, were helping illegal immigrants without permission from the government and slurring Bangladeshi in the media, a district deputy commissioner told Bangladeshi media.

“In two to three days, they will close their office and leave the area,” Joynul Bari told the Daily Star in Bangladesh, complaining that the groups were attracting ethnic Rohingya people across the border.

Doctors Without Borders confirmed Thursday that Bangladeshi authorities had sent the group a letter asking it to stop its work in the coastal district of Cox’s Bazar.

“We are currently discussing this matter with the Bangladeshi authorities and cannot comment further,” DWB media relations manager Michael R. Goldfarb said in an email.

Action Against Hunger said it could not confirm or comment on the reports. Muslim Aid could not be reached Thursday; its security coordinator in Bangladesh told Agence France-Presse that the group had stopped a project helping Rohingya refugees after getting the order.

[Updated 11:56 a.m. Friday, Aug. 3: Muslim Aid issued a statement saying that  it and other charities had halted their humanitarian operations to comply with the government order.

"It is unfortunate that this action has been taken in the holy month of Ramadan, which is a special occasion for helping vulnerable people and feeding the hungry," the group said, adding that it had appealed to Bangladesh to reconsider the decision and allow relief work to continue.]

Labeled as foreign intruders in Myanmar and rejected by Bangladesh, the Rohingya people are essentially stateless. In a recent searing report, Human Rights Watch said government forces in Myanmar, also known as Burma,  had killed and raped Rohingya after recent bouts of violence between Rohingya Muslims and Rakhine Buddhists.

Bangladesh, in turn, has repeatedly turned back rickety boats of Rohingya Muslims fleeing violence in Myanmar, to the chagrin of human rights groups who say the Rohingya are in desperate need. Officials in Bangladesh argue that  the country already shelters hundreds of thousands of Rohingya refugees and is being asked to shoulder a problem that Myanmar should handle.

“It is not our responsibility, it is their responsibility,” Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina said in a recent interview  with Al Jazeera television when pressed about turning away Rohingya.

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Photo: Rohingya Muslim women rest in their hut at an unregistered refugee camp in Teknaf in the  Cox's Bazar district of Bangladesh on June 20, 2012. Credit: Munir Uz Zaman / AFP/Getty Images

Refugees of 2011 underline 'suffering on an epic scale'

More people became refugees in 2011 than in any other year since the new millennium began, with one out of every four of them coming from Afghanistan, the United Nations refugee agency reported Monday.

The agency called the new numbers a sign of “suffering on an epic scale.”

Though more than 800,000 people fled across borders last year, the highest number since 2000, the number of people displaced worldwide actually dropped as millions of people returned to their homes, the agency said.

All in all, 42.5-million people were displaced or seeking asylum last year, a figure that could actually be higher since many countries do not report the number of people believed to be stateless.

Afghanistan produced the most refugees, followed by Iraq, Somalia and Sudan. Most fled to neighboring countries such as Pakistan, Iran and Kenya; Pakistan hosted more than 1.7-million refugees last year, the largest number in the world according to government estimates. Nearly all of them came from Afghanistan.

The U.N. refugee agency said while growing numbers of displaced people have returned home, it is alarmed that almost three out of every four refugees under its watch have been exiled from their homes for at least five years, many of them languishing in refugee camps.

The report was released ahead of World Refugee Day on Wednesday. The day comes as the agency is grappling with several new crises.

The U.N. recently lamented a dire shortfall of funding to help people uprooted by conflict in northern Mali, where Tuareg rebels have declared their own state. Bangladesh has turned away Rohingya Muslims trying to leave Myanmar after a recent eruption of ethnic violence, despite calls from the U.N. and other countries to allow them in. And in South Sudan, tens of thousands of refugees crossing from Sudan are suffering from deadly dehydration.

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Photo: Afghan refugees travel on a truck as they cross the border between their homeland and Pakistan  at Torkham on May 20. Credit: A. Majeed / Agence France-Presse / Getty Images.

Bangladesh rebuffs pleas to admit people fleeing Myanmar violence

Bangladesh has rebuffed pleas from the United Nations and other groups to allow in Rohingya Muslims displaced by sectarian clashes in Myanmar, continuing to turn away their boats at its borders.

“It is not in our interest that new refugees come from Myanmar,” Bangladeshi Foreign Minister Dipu Moni told reporters in Dhaka, the capital, on Tuesday.

Border guards “foiled two separate attempts of Rohingyas to enter” Bangladesh on Wednesday, the national news agency reported, sending 70 people back to Myanmar. About 1,500 Rohingya fleeing Myanmar in boats have been turned back since the weekend, when clashes broke out with the majority Rakhine Buddhist population, the Associated Press reported.

“It is not in our interest that new refugees come from Myanmar,” Bangladesh Foreign Minister Dipu Moni told reporters in Dhaka on Tuesday. She reiterated that position Wednesday, the national news agency said.

The United Nations' refugee agency has called on Bangladesh to provide a haven for people fleeing the fighting in coastal Rakhine state, where rival mobs of Rakhine Buddhists and Rohingya Muslims have burned homes and at least a dozen people have died. The violence in western Myanmar erupted after the lynching of 10 Muslims in retaliation for the rape and murder of a Buddhist girl, allegedly at the hands of three Muslims.

The Rohingya minority, estimated by the U.N. to number about 800,000, lack official acceptance from both Bangladesh and Myanmar, leaving them in effect stateless as the violence explodes. Bangladesh's Foreign Ministry has stressed that it is working with Myanmar “to ensure that developments in the Rakhine state do not have any trans-boundary spillover.”

The U.S. joined the public calls on Bangladesh on Wednesday, with State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland urging the country to ensure refugees aren't turned back to their persecutors, Agence France-Presse reported.

“By closing its border when violence in Arakan state is out of control, Bangladesh is putting lives at grave risk,” Human Rights Watch refugee program director Bill Frelick said Tuesday. “Bangladesh has an obligation under international law to keep its border open to people fleeing threats to their lives.”

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Photo: Rohingya Muslims sit in a boat after being intercepted by Bangladesh's Border Guard members in Teknaf on Wednesday. Credit: European Pressphoto Agency

Myanmar forces struggle to contain ethnic and religious violence

NEW DELHI -- Security forces struggled to contain clashes in western Myanmar on Tuesday after days of ethnic and religious violence left at least a dozen people killed and thousands displaced.

The fighting between majority Rakhine Buddhists and minority Rohingya Muslims is posing a serious challenge for the national government and its reform agenda as it seeks to end decades of isolation and military rule.

President Thein Sein declared a state of emergency in coastal Rakhine state Sunday night and ordered troops into the area to restore calm, but reports of violence continue and the United Nations announced it is evacuating staff from the area.

Police fired rounds into the air Tuesday to disperse Rohingya as houses burned in a neighborhood of the regional capital of Sittwe, the Associated Press reported.

In a refugee camp on the outskirts of New Delhi, Hafiz Ahmed, 42, said he was worried sick about the situation. "My parents are in Rakhine, I can't sleep at night," said Ahmed, who came to India three years ago to escape persecution in Myanmar. "Every three or four hours, I call them. I think the violence should stop now."

The unrest was sparked Friday following last month's rape and murder of a Buddhist girl, allegedly by three Muslims, and the lynching of 10 Muslims in retaliation. The weekend saw rival Muslim and Buddhist mobs burn houses. The government said about 4,100 people have lost their homes, many taking refuge in schools and Buddhist monasteries.

In Bangladesh, Clinton to focus on democracy and development

NEW DELHI -- U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton arrived Saturday in Bangladesh for meetings with senior officials in which she is expected to stress democracy, development and the benefits of getting along politically.

Bangladesh, an impoverished Muslim-majority country with 160 million people, has witnessed weeks of general strikes, demonstrations and violence after regional opposition politician Elias Ali disappeared in April, a topic Clinton was expected to raise in her meeting with Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.

The government and the opposition declared a temporary truce for Clinton’s visit. Each side blames the other for Ali’s disappearance, one of as many as 22 people, mostly politicians, who have gone missing this year, according to human rights groups.

“We’re calling for a full independent investigation, including looking into the government’s own security forces,” said Meenakshi Ganguly, South Asia researcher with Human Rights Watch. “There is suspicion this could perhaps be security forces under pressure to reduce extra-judicial killings.”

Bangladesh’s chronic infighting has been a huge drag on much-needed development efforts driven by  the country's ambition to be a middle-income nation by 2021, analysts say, a theme Clinton is also expected to focus on in her meetings.

Clinton is also expected to discuss a strategic dialogue with Bangladesh and encourage further cooperation on counterterrorism, environmental, health, food security and educational issues. Washington views Bangladesh as a prospective voice for moderation and leadership among Muslim-majority nations and vowed in January to extend close to $1 billion in aid to the country over the next five years.

Clinton had hoped to sign a long-discussed trade and investment deal that would safeguard large investments by such U.S. energy giants as Chevron and ConocoPhillips, but analysts say disagreements over labor standards and anti-corruption safeguards demanded by the U.S. side prevented a deal in time. “It was expected there would be a signing, but there are still problems,” said Zaid Bakht, research director with the Bangladesh Institute of Developmental Studies based in Dhaka.

Clinton is also expected to meet with Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus, founder of pioneering Grumeen Bank, which focuses on giving very small loans to large numbers of poor people. Yunus, a personal friend of the Clintons, was ousted from the bank last year by the government over what some analysts say was a fear he was becoming too popular, representing a potential political threat. The government denied this, saying he was past his mandatory retirement age.

Foreign Minister Dipu Moni said Dhaka will ask the U.S. to eliminate its 15% import tariff on the Bangladesh garment industry. Bangladesh exported $5.1 billion worth of goods, mostly apparel, to the U.S. last year and imported $676 million worth in return.

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Photo: A police officer stands guard as protesters march during Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton's visit to Dhaka. The banner says, "Go back Hillary, we condemn her visit." Credit: Pavel Rahman / Associated Press

The worst air pollution in the world

You may think the air is bad in Los Angeles, but researchers say it's worse in India and Bangladesh. A new study released at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, found that India had the worst air pollution in the world, followed by Bangladesh and Nepal. The United States ties with a slew of other countries for first place, including Japan and Argentina. Other interesting tidbits from the rankings include:

-- Ecuador was the most improved country when it came to air quality; Russia and Iraq had the biggest drops in the effects of their air on human health.

-- The worst countries for air pollution are clustered in South Asia and Central Africa.

You can delve deeper into the study and explore an interactive map of the findings using the Yale University Environmental Performance Index.

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