The Hindu American Foundation (HAF) has published the 2nd Annual Hindu Human Rights report entitled “Hindus in South Asia and the Diaspora: A Survey of Human Rights (2005)” – a compilation from reports by human rights groups of the genocide, ethnic cleansing, terrorism, and discriminatory laws that Hindus have faced in Pakistan, Bangladesh, and India's state of Jammu and Kashmir, Afghanistan and Fiji.
Executive Summary: The human rights of Hindu citizens are consistently violated in five regions where Hindus constitute a minority Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Fiji, Pakistan, and the Indian state of Jammu & Kashmir.
Highlights
- Hindus, one billion strong, are the third largest religious group in the world.
- Hinduism is one of the oldest surviving religions and its origins can be traced back to at least the third millennium BCE.
- Hindus are liberal in their beliefs about the myriad means of worship and prayer available to human beings to seek spiritual enlightenment.
- Even in their homeland, Hindus have been targets of attack by aggressive proselytizing followers of other religions.
Islamic Republic of Pakistan
- In 1947, Hindus were approximately 25% of the population of Pakistan.
- Now Hindus constitute less than 1.6% of the population.
- Pakistan officially discriminates against non-Muslims through a variety of
laws and strictures, and Hindus are targets of kidnappings, rape, and intimidation.
- On March 24, 2005, Pakistan restored the discriminatory practice of mandating
the mention of religious identity of individuals in all new passports.
- An alarming trend in Pakistan is that of Muslims kidnapping Hindu girls, forcing
their stay in madrassas or religious schools, and then coercing their conversion
to Islam.
- Hindus continue to be targeted in Balochistan, and more than 5,000 Hindus
have been forced to flee.
Recommendations
- Pakistan should remove all blasphemy laws. Those imprisoned under blasphemy
laws should get their day in court within a period of two weeks. Long imprisonments
without court appraisal constitute human rights abuse.
- Pakistan should reverse the March 24, 2005 decision to mandate religious identification
in passports
- Pakistan should set up a Human Rights Commission and/or a National Minorities
Commission to monitor the human rights condition and to enable minorities to
enjoy the rights provided to the majority population.
- The United States should demand that Pakistan stop aiding all groups who seek
to resolve the Kashmir dispute through violent means. Any aid to Pakistan should
be contingent on Pakistan's acceptance of a peaceful resolution of the Kashmir
dispute.
Indian State of Jammu & Kashmir
- Jammu and Kashmir is a state in India that has been claimed by Pakistan
since 1947.
- The Maharaja of Kashmir ceded his kingdom to India in 1947 when Pakistan invaded
Kashmir in order to conquer the kingdom. Pakistan occupies about one-third of
the region, and India governs about two- thirds.
- India and Pakistan have fought major wars over Kashmir.
- Since the mid to late 1980s, Islamist terrorists from Pakistan and Afghanistan
have targeted Kashmir in a jihadi insurgency that continues today with several
massacres of Hindu citizens of the state.
- The 300,000 Kashmiri Hindus are refugees in their own country, sheltered in
temporary camps near New Delhi, Jammu and elsewhere.
Recommendations
- Kashmiri Hindus should be allowed to return to their homes, and their
human rights and lives must be protected by the Indian central government and
the Jammu and Kashmir state government without interference from Pakistani terrorists.
People's Republic of Bangladesh
- In 1947, Hindus constituted nearly 30% of Bangladesh's population.
- By 1991, 20 million Hindus were "missing" from Bangladesh.
- Today, they are less than 10% of the population.
- Hindus of Bangladesh continue to be victims of the low intensity war waged
by Islamic fundamentalists.
- This low intensity violence includes daily acts of murder, rape, kidnappings,
temple destruction, and physical intimidation.
- Human rights activists and journalists are continuously harassed and abused
in Bangladesh.
- Nearly 500 acts of murder, rape, kidnappings, temple destruction, and land
grab targeting Hindus in the twelve month period have been recorded in this
report.
- The data regarding attacks against Hindus in Bangladesh during the month of
December 2005 is not available at the time of completing this report. It will
be included later in an addendum.
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