இந்துக்கள் மீதான மனித உரிமை மீறல்கள் - 2006 அறிக்கை

ஹூஸ்டன் குரோனிகிள் பத்திரிக்கை, 2006ஆம் ஆண்டில் இந்துக்கள் மீதான மனித உரிமை மீறல்கள் அறிக்கையை பற்றிய செய்தி வெளியிட்டுள்ளது.
HUMAN RIGHTS ABUSE
Report charts violence against Hindus
Evaluation cites 10 countries, areas of India, most with nonsecular governments


By RUSSELL WORKING
Chicago Tribune

CHICAGO — Raj Koul was a student in the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir when Islamic extremists launched an ethnic cleansing campaign against Hindus.

As mobs in the Muslim-majority state ransacked homes and killed residents, someone pasted a poster on the Kouls' door ordering them to leave within 24 hours, the United Airlines project manager says. After the family fled in 1990, they learned that a relative had been murdered.

Koul hears echoes of his experiences in a report from the Maryland-based Hindu-American Foundation. The report, "Hindus in South Asia and the Diaspora: A Survey of Human Rights 2006," censures 10 countries and the Jammu and Kashmir region for human rights abuses against Hindus.

The report, released last month, also cites abuses in Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Fiji, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Sri Lanka, and Trinidad and Tobago.

A number of the nations are Muslim — where the Hindu ritual use of carved deities is often perceived as idolatry — but the foundation reports persecution by the Buddhist monarchy in the Himalayan nation of Bhutan, and by Christians in the Pacific archipelago of Fiji and the Caribbean nation of Trinidad and Tobago.

Hinduism, one of the world's oldest surviving religions, has 1 billion adherents worldwide, but Hindus are a minority outside of India, making them vulnerable, said Ishani Chowdhury, the foundation's executive director. Many of the countries cited have religiously oriented governments.

"If you're considered an outsider because you don't show the majority community's faith, it culminates to the point where there is such extreme violence," Chowdhury said.

Human rights group Amnesty International has confirmed abuses in a number of the countries mentioned, including the kidnapping, torture and killing of Hindu civilians in Jammu and Kashmir by Islamist rebels. However, the agency has not studied the treatment of Hindus alone, said spokesman T. Kumar.

"We have documented abuses against all religious minorities in Pakistan and in Bangladesh," he said.

In Bangladesh, actions against Hindus by Islamic fundamentalists included 461 acts of murder, rape, kidnapping and temple destruction during the nine months of 2006 for which data is available, according to the report.

Officials at the Bengali Embassy in Washington did not respond to phone messages and a fax requesting comment. But a statement on the embassy's Web site downplayed sectarian discord there.

"In a country which is deeply committed to democratic practices and tolerance, communal disharmony is farthest from people's mind," the embassy stated. "On the contrary, Bangladesh has been universally described as moderate, functioning Muslim democracy."

The foundation compiled its report with the help of international and grass-roots organizations, including Human Rights Watch and the Bangladesh Hindu, Buddhist, Christian Unity Council. Media accounts of violence and abuse are frequently cited.

In Pakistan, a country where Hindus constitute 1.6 percent of the population, Hindu girls were kidnapped, raped, held in Islamic seminaries and forcibly converted, the report stated. Temples were destroyed, and 5,000 Hindus fled violence in the Balochistan region, the report said.

Nadeem Haider Kiani, press attaché at the Pakistani Embassy in Washington, said the report's section on his country is erroneous and exaggerated. Minorities are an important part of Pakistani society and have seats in federal and local legislatures, he said. Muslims also fled unrest in Balochistan, and most refugees have returned, Kaini said.

"With the mushroom growth of electronic media and print media in Pakistan, if a crime is committed in any corner of Pakistan, it is blown out of proportion in the media," he said.

In Koul's case, his people's anguish was personal. An elderly uncle who refused to flee was kidnapped and found hanging from a tree, his eyes gouged out, Koul said.

Koul worries that the West does not understand the danger of extremism in the region and elsewhere.

"We were kicked out because of our religion — just because we were Hindus," said Koul, who is president of the Indo-American Kashmir Forum, which seeks to call attention to the human rights abuses in the region. "Losing your birth- place and you can't go back — it is a very, very tragic experience."