The government arrested suspects in the killings of several secular bloggers who reportedly “offended Islam.” On July 20, five men were charged in Oyasiqur Rahman’s March 2015 killing and their trial began on August 4. Three of the suspects remained in custody, including Akram Hossain Hasib (also known as Boro Bhai), while the other two were released on bail. Police also arrested Patwary, a suspect in the killing of Ahmedur Rashid Tutul, and Moinul Islam Shamim, a suspect in the killing of Bangladeshi American writer Faisal Arefin Deepan, on June 15 and August 24, respectively. Shariful Islam Shihab, a suspect in the killing of Avijit Roy, was killed during a “gunfight” with police on June 19, although human rights organizations stated that this and other gunfights with police were in fact extrajudicial killings. Police offered monetary rewards for leads in the secular blogger killings, which led to the May 19 arrest of two members of the militant group Ansarullah Bangla Team who were suspected to have links to the attacks.
Religious minority communities such as Hindus and Christians, who are often also ethnic minorities, reported the government continued to displace them, by force if necessary, because of land ownership disputes that disproportionately affected them. According to religious associations, such disputes continued to occur in areas near new roads or industrial development zones, where land prices had recently increased. They also stated local police, civil authorities, and political leaders sometimes enabled property appropriation for financial gain or shielded politically influential property appropriators from prosecution. Some human rights groups attributed the lack of resolution of these disputes to the ineffectiveness of the judicial and land registry systems and to the lack of political and financial clout of the targeted religious communities rather than to government policy disfavoring religious or ethnic minorities.
On November 6, police in Gaibandha fired on Santal tribal people, most of whom were Christian, who were trying to occupy land the government had acquired in 1962 to grow sugarcane for a sugar mill. The Santal people used bows and arrows to fight the police and former mill employees. Three Santal people were killed and 25 were injured in the altercation. In May the media reported that the district administration of Moulvibazar in the northeast issued a notice to 700 mostly Catholic indigenous Khasia people to move from their ancestral lands and accused them of illegally occupying 60 hectares (150 acres) of government property and running betel leaf plantations. Tribal activists stated the district administration was acting in support of the Nahar Tea Estate, a company which had been trying to expand into the property since 2007. Tribal activists continued to fight the order at the year’s end.
In August the media reported Aktar Hossain, a local council member in Rangpur, directed a local woman and man be punished for an “extramarital affair” that occurred when the man broke into the woman’s house while her husband was gone. Without hearing testimony from the woman, council members determined her husband should cane her 101 times before 400 assembled villagers while the council member should cane the man 20 times. In the same month, the Ministry of Local Government, Rural Development, and Cooperatives stated it ordered district commissioners to mandate local councils prevent village leaders from using fatwas to punish villagers extrajudicially.
The government continued to provide law enforcement personnel at religious sites, festivals, and events considered targets for violence. The government also provided additional security at the Hindu festival of Durga Puja, Christmas, Easter, the Buddhist festival of Buddha Purnima, and the Bengali New Year or Pohela Boishakh.
Although most mosques were independent of the state, the government continued to provide guidance to imams throughout the country on some aspects of the content of their sermons. Following well publicized terrorist attacks on the Holey Artisan Bakery and the Sholakia Eid prayer grounds in July, the government-funded Islamic Foundation issued a sermon denouncing militancy, and suggested imams use it during Friday afternoon prayers. After a backlash from imams against government interference, the Islamic Foundation issued key passages from the Quran, which it suggested imams highlight. A prominent government-aligned cleric issued a religious edict denouncing militancy, which more than 100,000 imams reportedly signed but which many nongovernment-aligned imams rejected.
As part of its antimilitancy drive, the government pledged in July to monitor the sermons of the country’s more than 250,000 mosques for provocative messaging using the Islamic Foundation’s 1,400 regular staff, civil servants, law enforcement authorities, and the general public. The government could appoint and remove imams and had a strong influence over sermon content at the state-run National Mosque in Dhaka. Religious community leaders said imams in all mosques usually avoided sermons that contradicted government policy.
The government prohibited transmission of India-based Islamic televangelist Zakir Naik’s Peace TV Bangla, which it stated spread extremist ideologies, and closed “peace schools” affiliated with his teachings. According to civil society organizations, the government overreached in its efforts to ban Peace TV Bangla and could have allowed the locally produced programs featured on the channel to air, even if they wanted to censor Zakir Naik’s show.
On May 4, Minister of Information Hasanul Haque Inu announced the implementation of a media monitoring cell, which he stated would follow media and blogs that write negatively about Hindu, Muslim, and other religious beliefs, which he said contributed to theist-atheist divisions in the country. Activists stated the government Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission took steps in May to block the popular online blog platform somewhereinblog, a site used in the past by secular bloggers.
Following attacks against bloggers whom militants accused of offending Islam, Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan stated bloggers “should control their writing…people should be careful not to hurt anyone by writing anything” that might hurt “any religion, any people’s beliefs, and religious leaders.” Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina Wajed stated “It’s not at all acceptable if anyone writes against our prophet or other religions.”
The government again did not adjudicate any of the more than one million pending restitution cases involving land seized from Hindus who left Bangladesh before the nation’s independence and were characterized as enemies of the state at that time. The cases have remained pending since a 2011 law allowed the prior owners of the land to appeal the seizures.
Religious minorities said minority students sometimes were not able to enroll in religion classes of their faith because of a lack of minority teachers for mandatory religious education classes. In these cases, school officials generally allowed for arrangements with local religious institutions, parents, or others to hold religious studies classes for such students outside of school hours and sometimes exempted the students from the religious education requirement.
Civil society groups, including Manusher Jonno Foundation (MJF), Ain o Salish Kendra (ASK), Bangladesh Mahila Parishad, and Banchte Shekha criticized the government for maintaining restrictive laws with regard to Hindu marriage and divorce. A survey conducted during the year by Research Initiatives in Bangladesh and MJF showed that 26.7 percent of Hindu men and 29.2 percent of Hindu women would like to obtain a divorce but did not do so because of existing laws.
The government provided the Islamic Foundation, administered by the Ministry of Religious Affairs, with 3.5 billion taka ($44.3 million) in 2015, the latest figures available, from a line item in the government budget for activities relating to promoting the values and ideals of Islam, including religious education and provision of training for imams. The government also provided grants in aid to 2,134 Muslim institutions amounting to 185.49 million taka ($2.3 million). In 2016, the government worked with representatives from three trusts intended to benefit minority religious groups: the Hindu Welfare Trust (with assets of 205 million taka, $2.6 million), the Christian Religious Welfare Trust (assets of 50 million taka, $633,000), and the Buddhist Welfare Trust (assets of 70 million taka, $886,000). The three trusts were managed by trustees who were members of their respective religious communities and used interest from their assets to fund temple, church, and monastery development and repairs.
During the year, the Hindu and Buddhist trusts received support from the government for religious education. In addition, the Hindu Welfare Trust received from the government payment for staff salaries. Also, 1,173 Hindu institutions received 41.95 million taka ($531,000) from parliament from the revenue budget for temple development and a 15 million taka ($190,000) donation from the prime minister to celebrate Durja Puja. One hundred and forty six Buddhist institutions received 4.13 million taka ($52,300) for temple development and repairs and the Buddhist Welfare Trust received 5 million taka ($63,300) from the prime minister to celebrate religious festivals.
Fifteen Christian institutions received 3.15 million taka ($39,900) from the government for church upkeep and repair. The Christian Religious Welfare Trust did not apply for additional special grants from the government. Minority religious leaders continued to state the government did not fund the trusts on an equal basis with the Islamic Foundation. They reported the foundation received yearly allocations of funds from the state budget while the trusts had to rely on income generated from government contributions to their capital funds.
The president continued to host receptions to commemorate each of the principal Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, and Christian holidays.