After India’s 1947 partition, Hindus were a third of East
Pakistan’s population; when East Pakistan became Bangladesh
in 1971, they were less than a fifth; 30 years later under a tenth;
and today fewer than eight percent. Bangladeshi Hindus face government
tolerated murder, rape, abduction, forced conversion, land grabs,
and more, including a 2009 pogrom behind a Dhaka police station.
Yet, the world has remained silent—until now.
A Quiet Case of Ethnic Cleansing: the Murder of Bangladesh’s
Hindus rips the cover off this atrocity with testimony by Hindus
in Bangladesh and India; confrontations with their victimizers;
and extensive research documenting a deliberate effort by the “moderate
Muslim nation” of Bangladesh to kill, kick out, or convert
Hindus; and the complicity of those entities that should be defending
them. It is a call to action with practical solutions to end this
quiet case of ethnic cleansing.
Dr. Richard Benkin burst onto the human rights scene in 2003 with
a one-man campaign that freed a Bangladeshi journalist from imprisonment
and torture for fighting radical Islam’s rise in Bangladesh
and urging relations with Israel. Since then, Benkin has forced
Bangladesh’s RAB to release an abductee unharmed, halted an
anti-Israel conference at an official Australian building, and led
the fight to stop the ethnic cleansing of Hindus in Bangladesh.
A sought after speaker and writer, Benkin has addressed audiences
and published articles on four continents. He is the President and
co-founder of Forcefield, a human rights NGO dedicated to defending
the oppressed without regard to ideologies or political correctness,
holds a doctorate from the University of Pennsylvania, has held
a number of faculty and business positions, and serves on the Boards
of several human rights organizations. He also serves as an expert
witness in cases involving South Asian refugees.