Bangladesh Hindus refugee status opposed in India

Bengali-speaking Hindus from Bangladesh facing religious persecution should be refused official refugee status in India, according to the opposition Asom Gana Parishad (AGP) political party. Governor Janaki Ballabh Patnaik of Assam received a memo from the group on 19 July objecting to the state cabinet’s acceptance of the displaced people group found in the province…

Northern Nigeria – ‘where chaos and fear reign’

Christians and Muslims live under a ‘reign of terror’ with almost-daily attacks in Northern Nigeria by the Boko Haram Islamic extremist group. That is the verdict given by a delegation from the Humanitarian Aid Relief Trust (HART) following a visit to communities in the region in June and July, 2014. The team included Baroness Cox, a…

Muslims attacked in China, Sri Lanka and Myanmar

Muslim minorities face continued persecution for their faith by religious fanatics backed by authorities in China, Sri Lanka and Myanmar, according to the chief of the World Assembly of Muslim Youth (WAMY), on 16 July. Saleh Al-Wohaibi, who leads the Riyadh-based organisation, said extremist Buddhists and other faith hardliners were systematically targeting Islamic believers in those countries….

Indian villages ban open practice of non-Hindu faiths

A spokesman for the Chhattisgarh Christian Forum said the village of Belar, in central India, convened a Gram Sabha, or village assembly, on 6 July and passed a resolution banning all non-Hindu religious activities. This echoed a Gram Sabha of representatives from about a dozen villages held 10 May in nearby Sirsiguda village. There, the delegates…

Kyrgyzstan restricts freedom for Ahmadis

On 10 July Kyrgyzstan’s Supreme Court rejected an appeal against two lower courts’ support of the State Commission for Religious Affairs’ (SCRA) refusal to give state registration to the Ahmadi Muslim community. Asel Bayastanova, the Ahmadi’s defence lawyer, told Forum 18 News Service that “it means that Ahmadi Muslims cannot act like Ahmadi Muslims and…

Pakistan: extremists taking hold in Sindh

Sunni Islamic extremists are making inroads in the southern Pakistani province of Sindh. The New York Times, in a major feature, reports that In recent months, Hindu temples have been defaced, Shiite Muslims have been assaulted and Christians have been charged with blasphemy. The Sunni supremacist ideology propagated by Pakistani sectarian groups is similar to…