Response to some allegations on our petition.  

 

Dear friends: 

We are dismayed at the reaction our impassioned petition evoked in certain cyber forums.  The petition was intended to highlight the plight of the minorities living in the South Asian subcontinent.  The intent of the petition was to address the highest leaders of the three countries and make them aware of the terrible atrocities which are being perpetrated upon the minority population incessantly, and to that extent we believe ours to be a credible effort in speaking up for the suffering millions. At no time did we intend to delve into specific details of the atrocities committed upon the minorities, of which there are innumerable examples, which could have been cited in the petition covering all the three countries. 

A segment of the members of the cyber forums have expressed their dissatisfaction over the fact that Gujarat was not specifically mentioned.  The oppression of the minority Muslim population in Gujarat has been well documented in these forums, and many members of our forum expressed their disgust at those events on numerous occasions.

   

[As we write this, Mukto-mona is hosting a petition to get justice for the victims of Gujarat ( also check our forum message# 11888, 11917 etc). Mukto-mona web site holds numerous articles on Gujarat riots, for example:  
India: Gujarat riots �  communalization of state and civic society ; 
Ethnic Cleansing In Ahmedabad, etc ].

 

By the same token, the daily newspapers are awash with numerous headlines of the killings of Christians, Shias, and Ahamedias in Pakistan. These facts cannot be denied, no matter how strenuously the members of the majority segment object to obfuscate the issue. Likewise, there were numerous instances of hate crimes perpetrated upon the minorities of Bangladesh following the election and the rise to power of the Islamic political parties. The numbers of such oppression of minorities in Bangladesh in recent times has reached alarming levels, especially the rapes and murders of the Hindu minority population. Check these links for the series:  �DOCUMENTS ON MINORITY REPRESSION: REPORT OF THE PUBLIC INQUIRY COMMISSION� (message#: 11572, 11661, 11774) ; Professor Ajoy Roy and Dr.Abdul Momen�s article (message#: 5158) on post election violence.

 

By the way, if any of you might still have any lingering questions as to why Gujarat was specifically not mentioned in the petition, we would like to remind the readers that by the same measure, we also did not mention the horrible atrocities on Hindu minority immediately following the general election of Bangladesh held on October 1, 2001. We also did not specifically mention about the recent extermination of 11 Shia minorities in Pakistan during the police training and numerous others that are occurring on a daily basis.  It was not our intent to get into those details and cloud the message of the petition, therefore we deliberately kept it as general as possible, without specifically getting into the gory details of minority oppression, in any of those three countries.

We hope you all will rise above the pettiness and openly express your support for the overall intent of the petition, the message clearly stated, �Stop Oppression of Minorities�!  Let us all unite towards this common cause and lend our voice against the evils of communalism and minority oppression. A Hindu hate campaign is no less morally repugnant than a Muslim hate campaign. The victims are all our brothers and sisters, and their suffering cannot be condoned and nor should anyone use semantics or diversionary language to slight their plight, no matter in which jurisdiction such atrocities take place.

We sincerely invite you to join our campaign and voice your disapproval of such atrocities upon our brothers and sisters, and we hope that you will not trivialize this cry for justice through petty accusations. Let us all combine our voices against the perpetrators of hate crimes be they Hindus, Muslims or anyone else. Let us crush those divisive elements and make our countries a better place for all the people, and for our future generations.

Links of our Petition:

https://gold.mukto-mona.com/human_rights/petition_peace/ 

http://www.petitiononline.com/minority/

Sincerely, 

Mukto-Mona moderation team

Response to Lopa Tasnem. 

Response to Ziauddin (in Bangla). 

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