Muslim, Jewish Activists Launch New Interfaith Web Site
Salah Uddin Shoaib Choudhury, a Bangladesh Muslim, and Dr. Richard L. Benkin, a Jew from the United States, announce a new web site, dedicated to promoting true interfaith understanding and relgious equality.
Chicago, IL (PRWEB) April 18, 2006
Salah Uddin Shoaib Choudhury and Dr. Richard L. Benkin announce the launching of a new web site dedicated to strengthening the bonds of understanding among people of different faiths. This international effort has grown out of the collegial and now fraternal relationship between Choudhury, a Muslim from Bangladesh, and Benkin, a Jew from the United States. Since 2003, they have been fighting the tightly controlled and biased news and information about Israel and the Jewish people that most Muslims receive. The new site’s address is http://www. interfaithstrength. com (http://www. interfaithstrength. com).
In November of 2003, Bangladesh authorities arrested Choudhury after he published a number of articles warning his country about the threat of Islamic terrorists, urging Bangladesh to recognize Israel, and advocating interfaith understanding and religious equality. As they were taking him away, Choudhury asked his brother, Sohail, to contact Benkin for help. Benkin had been working with him and, through Choudhury, publishing in the Bangladesh press.
For seventeen months, Choudhury languished in a Bangladeshi prison often under deplorable conditions. His health deteriorated, but his spirit did not. On the outside, his family was ostracized and even attacked. When Sohail Choudhury went to the police for help, they refused blaming the attacks on the Choudhurys’ “alliance with the Jews.” Meanwhile in the United States, Benkin advocated tirelessly for his Muslim brother, writing about him, speaking with people around the US about the case, and eventually enlisting the aid of US Congressman Mark Kirk (R-IL). Kirk and Benkin met with Bangladesh’s Ambassador, Shamsher M. Chowdhury, in Kirk’s Washington office on April 8, 2005. Three weeks later, Choudhury was free.
While Bangladesh is an immediate focus for the two men, the site is universal, noting, “the problem goes beyond its borders just as the disease at its root affects more than Jews and Muslims. They have worked with Christians, Hindus, and others as well and ask peoples of all faiths and nations to join their struggle. “We will continue the struggle to bring the TRUTH to wherever a people's leaders and institutions try to keep it out.”
Benkin and Choudhury hope that the Interfaith Strength web site becomes a cyber resource of information and opinion, as well as a place where people can network with others who believe in real interfaith understanding “that comes only from respectful and honest discussion.”
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