Religious minorities in Bangladesh victims of intolerance and persecution, observes CCA’s pastoral solidarity visit team

Programme Review and Programme Direction

Two key deliberative sessions during the 15th CCA General Assembly are the Programme Review and Programme Direction sessions.

The Programme Review and Programme Direction sessions will both be conducted in three groups relating to the CCA’s programme areas, namely, (i) General Secretariat (GS), (ii) Mission in Unity and Contextual Theology (MU) and Ecumenical Leadership Formation and Spirituality (EF); and (iii) Building Peace and Moving Beyond Conflicts (BP) and Prophetic Diakonia (PD).

Assembly participants will have the option to join one of three groups for both the Programme Review and Programme Direction sessions. For the sake of coherence, the assigned group will remain the same for both sessions.

General Secretariat

The General Secretariat oversees the coordination of programmatic, administrative, and financial activities of the organization. The GS comprises various departments such as church and ecumenical relations, relations with ecumenical partners, finance, administration, and communications, which provide crucial support and services for the implementation of programs and contribute to the overall functioning of the CCA.

Programmes: Relations with member churches and councils, ecumenical partners; advocacy at the United Nations; ecumenical responses to emerging issues in solidarity; income development and finance; and communications.

Mission in Unity and Contextual Theology (MU) and Ecumenical Leadership Formation and Spirituality (EF)

Under the MU programme area, the CCA accompanies Asian churches to strengthen their mission and witness in multi-religious contexts, revitalise and nurture church unity and the Asian ecumenical movement, and develop contextual theological foundations.

Programmes: Asian Movement for Christian Unity (AMCU); Congress of Asian Theologians (CATS); Asian women doing theology in the context of wider ecumenism; contextualisation of theology in Asia and ecumenical theological education.

The EF programme area focuses on nurturing and developing ecumenical leaders in Asia. The programme aims to enhance spiritual formation and theological understanding, enabling people to actively engage in ecumenical dialogue and collaboration.

Programmes: Ecumenical Enablers’ Training in Asia (EETA); Asian Ecumenical Institute (AEI); Youth and Women Leadership Development; Ecumenical Spirituality and Nurturing of Contextual Liturgical Traditions; Asia Sunday

Building Peace and Moving Beyond Conflicts (BP) and Prophetic Diakonia and Advocacy (PD)

The BP programme area is dedicated to promoting peace, justice, and reconciliation in Asia’s diverse contexts. Through training, advocacy, and dialogue, the programme addresses the root causes of conflicts, empowers communities, and fosters sustainable peacebuilding initiatives.

Programmes: Pastoral Solidarity Visits; Churches in Action for Moving Beyond Conflict and Resolution; Young Ambassadors of Peace in Asia (YAPA); Ecumenical Women’s Action Against Violence (EWAAV); Eco-Justice for Sustainable Peace in the Oikos.

The PD programme area focuses on promoting justice, human rights, and social transformation in Asia. Through advocacy, capacity-building, and raising awareness, the programme addresses systemic injustice, empowers marginalised communities, and advocates for prophetic actions and meaningful change.

Programmes: Human Rights advocacy; Migration, Statelessness, and Trafficking in Persons; Asian Ecumenical Disability Advocacy Network; Asian Advocacy Network on the Dignity and Rights of Children (AANDRoC); Ecumenical Solidarity Accompaniment and Diakonia in Asia (ESADA); Health and Healing; Good Governance; Action Together to Combat HIV and AIDS in Asia (ATCHAA).

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17 May 2017

IMG_1023The CCA pastoral solidarity team's visit to the Bangladesh Islamic Foundation (BIF).

“Bangladesh’s religious minorities have been facing attacks since the 2014 national election. During the elections, minority-dominated villages were the worst attacked places, where individuals and groups associated with pro-Islamist parties looted and burned properties and residences owned by members of Hindu, Christian and Buddhist religions in different parts of the country. Some political parties deliberately used the religious sentiments of ordinary people to intensify communal and religious tensions and polarisations for political advantages,” a pastoral solidarity team of the Christian Conference of Asia (CCA) was told by representatives of different religious groups in Bangladesh.

“In the last two years alone, at least eight secular bloggers, publishers and rights’ activists have been killed for writing about freedom of thought, religious harmony, communal tolerance and political accountability,” told civil society organisation representatives to the CCA team.

The CCA organised a Pastoral Solidarity Visit from 7 – 11 May 2017 to accompany the churches and communities facing religiously motivated violence in Bangladesh. The solidarity team consisted of Rev. Dr. Henny William Booth Sumakul, Head of the Gereja Masehi Injili di Minahasa (Christian Evangelical Church in Minahasa) – GMIM, Indonesia and a member of the CCA Programme Committee and Dr. Reynaldo Racaza Ty, CCA Program Coordinator for Prophetic Diakonia and Advocacy.

During the four-day visit, the solidarity team engaged in interactions with various civil society organisations, representatives of minority religious groups, churches, ecumenical organisations and social and human rights activists in the country.

Members of the solidarity team were told that minorities in Bangladesh live in the midst of terror and fear. Extremist violence has been a recurring problem in the country, where religious minorities are intimidated, threatened, assaulted and killed by Islamic extremists’ intent on silencing dissenting voices.

Out of the 169 million people in Bangladesh, 90 percent are Sunni Muslims; 9.5 percent of them belong to the Hindu religion; and all other faiths, including Christians, Theravada Buddhists, Shi’ite and Ahmadi Muslims, account for less than 1 percent of the total population.

As a direct result of the frequent spate of attacks by extremist groups in the country, religious minorities in Bangladesh are also vulnerable to illegal land grabbing. At least 431,000 people continue to live in displacement as a result of past conflicts and ongoing violence in the country. Indigenous people and religious minorities have been disproportionately affected by this violence and the resulting protracted and new displacement.

Ecumenical and church leaders in Bangladesh echoed their concerns over the troubling rise in violence in the country and informed the members of the CCA solidarity team about the plight of the suffering communities.

The CCA solidarity team met with leaders of the National Council of Churches in Bangladesh (NCCB), the Catholic Bishops Conference of Bangladesh (CBCB), the Bangladesh Baptist Church Sangha (BBCS), the Church of Bangladesh (COB), and the United Forum of Churches in Bangladesh (UFCB) and heard stories about the suffering of religious minorities in the country.

The team also met with the leadership of the National Human Rights Commission, the Bangladesh Islamic Foundation (BIF), the Bangladesh Mahila Parishad (BMP), the Christian Association & Hindu-Buddhist-Christian Unity Council and the YWCA & YMCA in Bangladesh.

During discussions with interfaith religious leaders, Dr. Reynaldo Racaza Ty said, “In the face of religious-inspired violence in Bangladesh it is heartening to note that different religious groups are working closely to promote inter-religious cooperation and harmony.”