Nearly half of Bangladesh’s population lives on less than $1 CAD per day. Among the world’s poorest nations, the country suffers from gross overpopulation and periodic natural disasters (such as devastating floods and cyclones) with enormous loss of life and property.

A part of Pakistan for 24 years (and then India prior to Pakistan’s secession), Bangladesh gained independence in 1971 after a bitter civil war. Political instability—filled with assassinations, military coups and a nine-year military dictatorship—ended in 1991. Democratic elections brought the ruling Bangladesh Nationalist Party to power and made Bangladesh one of the Islamic world’s only democracies. Recent elections, although generally fair, have been marked by violent demonstrations.

Islam became the state religion in 1988. Muslims make up 89 percent of the population while Christians are 0.66 percent. Officially, there is religious freedom, but it is being steadily eroded by Islamist pressure and a legal system lacking safeguards for ethnic or religious minorities.

The majority of discrimination against Christians comes from Muslims who threaten Christian work, deny them access to public water wells, beat them, threaten them in exchange for money, or destroy their rickshaws to eliminate their only source of income.

In May 2010, village officials in Bangladesh’s northern district of Jamalpur extorted relatively large sums of money from two Christian women and severely beat the husband of one for proclaiming Christ to Muslims. In September, Muslim neighbours of a Christian family scheduled to be baptized beat them and filed a false charge of attempted murder against them and other Christians. In October, Muslim villagers beat a Christian convert and his youngest son because they refused to return to Islam. Another Christian in a nearby village was beaten and robbed.

Prayer Requests

• Praise God that despite limited access to biblical training and resources, Christians are boldly proclaiming Christ! Continue to pray for His grace to stand firm and preach with courage.
• Pray for binding of the powers of darkness operating in religious, social and ethnic realms.
• Pray also that constitutional freedom allowing all to practice and propagate their own religions might be maintained.