(British student Sami Ahmed has launched a petition on behalf of her mother, Saira Ahmed, to receive an apology from the Government of Bangladesh for condoning Saira’s child marriage to a British paedophile and manic-depressive. Given below is the text of the letter from Sami Ahmed to the Prime Minister of Bangladesh, Sheikh Hasina. –Ed.)

Dear Sheikh Hasina, PM of Bangladesh

Agence France Press reports that the Bangladesh High Court – the highest court in the country – has outlawed punishments ordered under Islamic sharia law.

The Bangladesh High Court has outlawed punishments handed down by religious edict, or fatwa, after a series of cases of Muslim women being beaten and caned, a state lawyer said on 9 July 2010.

Two people have been reported killed in riots against Humanist writer Taslima Nasrin in the southern Indian state of Karnataka. The rioters were protesting alleged "anti-Islamic" statements made in a local newspaper article attributed to Dr. Nasrin.

Bangladesh embodies a combination of Bengali society and culture, a Hindu and Buddhist heritage and later Muslim traditions. The caste system and prejudice against “untouchables” are part of Hindu culture. Although Hindu in origin, work-based discrimination and social exclusion have been a reality in both the Hindu minority and the Muslim majority communities in Bangladesh.

Where am I?

IHEU extends its congratulations to Mohammed Yunus and the Grameen Bank, winners of the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize.

Mohammed Yunus made his first loan, about £14, in 1976 to a group of 42 women in Bangladesh. They repaid him in full. His system of lending to a small group rather than individuals and to women who accepted family planning has stood the test of time. 30 years later his Grameen Bank has made over £2.9 billion in loans and his methods have been copied in over 50 countries. It is estimated that over 100 million people have benefited from his invention of micro-credit, now recognized as one of the most important tools in the struggle against poverty.

Islami Chattra Shibir, the militant student wing of Jamaat-e-Islami, a coalition partner in the Bangladesh government, has issued death threats to two eminent Bangladesh-based secular intellectuals: Philosophy Professor and litterateur Hasan Azizul Haque of the Rajshahi University and popular writer Professor Zafar Iqbal at the Shahjalal University of Science and Technology. They are accused of teaching the values of secularism, democracy and science to young people and turning them into 'filthy atheists'. The death threats contain a detailed description of how they would be killed -- first their tongues would be cut off, and then they would have their throats slit. The same group is suspected of the murder of another academic at Rajshahi University.

Bangladesh, where I was born, is a nation of more than 130 million people, one of the most populous countries in the world.

More than 1000 people are crowded into every square kilometre. It is a country where 70 per cent of the people live below the poverty line, where more than half the population cannot read and write, a country where there is insufficient health care, and where infant mortality is high. Nearly 40 million women have no access to education nor do they have the possibility of becoming independent.

See: the list of IHEU Member Organizations