Bangladesh: Attacks on Hindu Community

Debate between Catherine West and Barry Gardiner

Monday 2nd December 2024 Commons Chamber

[Barry Gardiner (Brent West) (Lab)]

(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs if he will make a statement on the situation in Bangladesh and recent attacks on the Hindu community there.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs (Catherine West)]

The UK has a long-standing commitment to the protection of human rights. The UK champions freedom of religion or belief for all; no one should live in fear because of what they do or do not believe in. We are working to uphold the right to freedom of religion or belief through our position at the UN, G7 and at other multilateral fora, and in our important bilateral work.

Just last month, as my hon. Friend the Member for Brent West (Barry Gardiner) is aware, I visited Bangladesh, where, as part of our programme, I met Chief Adviser Professor Yunus and Foreign Affairs Adviser Touhid Hossain. At the meeting with Chief Adviser Yunus, I discussed the full range of bilateral issues, including the importance of protecting religious minorities in Bangladesh. The UK Government support freedom of religion or belief and freedom of expression in Bangladesh through both our political advocacy and development programme funding, providing up to £27 million from March 2023 to February 2028 under the Bangladesh collaborative, accountable and peaceful politics programme for protecting civic and political space.

On the Hindu community in Bangladesh specifically, I was given assurances by the interim Government in Bangladesh that support was available for minority communities in Bangladesh in the lead up to Durga Puja —a national festival. We were pleased to see the establishment of a special policing unit, which was active in protecting mandaps—the Hindu worship sites—as I am sure my hon. Friend is aware.

The UK Government will continue to monitor the situation, including making representations from this House, and will engage with the interim Government in Bangladesh on the importance of freedom of religion or belief specifically as it affects the Hindu community.

[Barry Gardiner]

Thank you for allowing this urgent question, Mr Speaker.

Since the fall of the previous Government in August, Bangladesh has seen more than 2,000 incidents of violence, most of which have been targeted against the minority Hindu community. Hindus make up less than 10% of the population of Bangladesh. As my hon. Friend will be aware, anti-Hindu violence has been a recurrent event in Bangladesh. Indeed, earlier this year, the Jamaat-e-Islami party was banned after riots in which 200 people were killed.

While Bangladesh no longer has the secular constitution of 1971 and became an Islamic state in 1988, there are none the less supposed to be protections for minority religions under the constitution, including articles 28 and 39. However, these appear not to be being enforced. There are reports of police and army standing by, as more than 20 places of minority Hindu and Sufi worship were vandalised and their worshippers attacked. This came to a head on Friday, when extremist groups from the Jamaat-e-Islami party attacked two Hindu temples in Chittagong and conducted a campaign of orchestrated violence against the Hindu population.

A leading Hindu monk, Chinmoy Krishna Das, a former leader of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness has been arrested. ISKCON is a worldwide branch of modern Hinduism with its UK headquarters at Bhaktivedanta Manor in Bushey, many of whose worshippers live in my constituency of Brent West and the surrounding areas of north-west London. People are concerned that while he was engaged in exclusively peaceful protest, he has been denied due process, charged with sedition and refused bail, yet none of the individuals who attacked the temples has been apprehended or charged. On Saturday, senior Bangladeshi journalist Munni Saha was taken into police custody following an attack on her car by a large mob in Dhaka, and released only under the provisions of the criminal code.

The situation is clearly on a knife edge. With such large diaspora populations in the UK and large Hindu communities with strong links to the community in Bangladesh, I ask my hon. Friend what more she can do to have discussions with the Bangladeshi Government and other partners in the region to ensure that tensions are lowered, the rule of law put into effect, and calm and order restored.

[Catherine West]

My hon. Friend is right to raise these concerns. Our high commission, based in Dhaka, is in detailed discussions with the interim Government of Bangladesh on how to verify and record the number of incidents or attacks against communities, and indeed small businesses, where there have been reports of such attacks, as well as taking remedial action and indeed working on prevention.

That is why, in the week we visited, we were pleased to hear that the special policing unit had been set up. We stand ready to offer advice on law and order, but know that that is part of the road map towards a more stable Bangladesh. We are aware of the statement of concern from the Indian Government following the arrest of Chinmoy Krishna Das, a well-known Hindu leader, on sedition charges. The UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office desk is closely monitoring those developments.