Muslim settlers burn down village in Bangladesh

February 22, 2011

Muslims seeking additional land have burned down a Bangladeshi village inhabited by Christians, Buddhists, and Hindus.

“Nobody, not even the civil authorities, respects and guarantees the rights of ethnic and religious minorities,” reported Fides, the news agency of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples. “Minorities are often unduly defrauded of the land they have cultivated or houses they have lived in for centuries; women suffer rapes, kidnappings, forced conversions and marriages; the non-Muslim citizens are discriminated against in seeking work and education.”

0.2% of the nation’s 144.2 million people are Catholic, according to Vatican statistics. 83% are Muslim, and 16% are Hindu.

 

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Further information:

• A village burned down, tribal Christians forced out by Muslim settlers (Fides)
• Human rights denied for ethnic and religious minorities (Fides)