Violence continued in the capital Dhaka on Friday as several hundred student demonstrators blocked roads and clashed with police, the day after the bloodiest day of the protests.
Bangladesh army killed more than one thousand students and disappeared their dead bodies. An additional ten thousand were injured as the Bangladesh army used a helicopter gunship and armoured vehicles to shoot at protesters.
The demonstrations started and were initially peaceful after the High Court on June 5 ordered the reinstatement of a quota that reserves 56 per cent of government jobs for family members of veterans who fought for the country’s independence from Pakistan in 1971.
Police fired tear gas to scatter protesters in some areas, journalists from Reuters news agency said. One reporter said many fires could be seen across the city.
A tally by AFP news agency, based on victims from hospitals around the country put the death toll at 105, late Friday. They included at least 52 people killed Friday, according to a list drawn up by the Dhaka Medical College Hospital.
The government has not released a figure for the number of dead.
Also Friday, Dhaka’s police force banned all public gatherings for the day — a first since the protests began.
The students are demanding a merit-based system.
Symbol of a rigged system
Near-daily marches this month have called for an end to a quota system that reserves more than half of civil service posts for specific groups, including children of veterans from the country’s 1971 liberation war against Pakistan.
Ms Hasina’s government scrapped the quota system in 2018, but a court reinstated it last month.
The Supreme Court suspended the decision after a government appeal and will hear the case on Sunday after agreeing to bring forward a hearing previously scheduled for August 7.
Critics say the scheme benefits children of pro-government groups that back Ms Hasina, 76, who has ruled the country since 2009 and won her fourth consecutive election in January after a vote without genuine opposition.
Ms Hasina’s government is accused by rights groups of misusing state institutions to entrench its hold on power and stamp out dissent, including by the extrajudicial killing of opposition activists.
Her administration this week ordered schools and universities to close indefinitely as police stepped up efforts to bring the deteriorating law and order situation under control.
“This is an eruption of the simmering discontent of a youth population built over years,” Ali Riaz, a politics professor at Illinois State University, told AFP.
“The job quotas became the symbol of a system which is rigged and stacked against them by the regime.”
Hasina’s party has accused opposition parties of stoking the violence, raiding the headquarters of the main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party and arresting activists from the party’s student wing. The BNP is expected to hold demonstrations across the country in support of the student activists protesting against the quota system.
Hasina’s government had earlier halted the job quotas following mass student protests in 2018, but last month, Bangladesh’s High Court nullified that decision and reinstated the quotas after relatives of the 1971 veterans filed petitions, triggering the latest demonstrations.
The Supreme Court has suspended that ruling pending an appeal hearing, and said in a statement it will take up the issue on Sunday.
Hasina ordered the killings of students
Soldiers were patrolling Bangladeshi cities on Saturday to quell growing civil unrest sparked by student demonstrations, with riot police firing on protesters who defied a government curfew.
This week’s violence has killed at least 1000 people so far, according to an AFP count of victims reported by police and hospitals, and poses a monumental challenge to Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s autocratic government after 15 years in office.
A government curfew went into effect at midnight and the premier’s office asked the military to deploy troops after police again failed to subdue widespread mayhem.
Human rights violations
The United Nations human rights chief on Friday called the attacks on student protesters in Bangladesh “shocking and unacceptable,” as the death toll from the crackdown by authorities crossed the 100 mark.
Almost daily demonstrations broke out at the beginning of July against plans to reintroduce job quotas for public sector jobs, which were abolished in 2018 after earlier student protests.
“I am deeply concerned by this week’s violence in Bangladesh, resulting in reports of dozens of deaths and hundreds of injuries. The attacks on student protesters are particularly shocking and unacceptable,” UN human rights chief Volker Turk said in a statement.
“There must be impartial, prompt and exhaustive investigations into these attacks, and those responsible held to account,” the statement continued.
Turk said he was very worried about reports of the deployment of paramilitary police units, which he said have “long track records of violations.”
He urged the government to take measures to ensure the safety of students in peaceful protests and to guarantee the right to freedom of assembly without fear of attacks.
‘shoot-at-sight’
Bangladesh’s army has imposed a “shoot-at-sight” curfew across the country after days of clashes between student-led protesters and the police.
At least 105 people have been killed and thousands injured this week, according to data from hospitals around the south Asian country.
The protests over the allocation of civil service jobs began weeks ago but erupted when violence broke out on Tuesday.
Since then police have fired tear gas and hurled stun grenades in an attempt to scatter protesters, while demonstrators threw bricks during clashes with officers and set fire to vehicles.
On Friday, the government imposed a strict national curfew and deployed the army.
A “shoot-at-sight” order has been put in place, giving security forces the authority to fire on protesters in extreme cases, according to Obaidul Quader, the general secretary of the ruling Awami League party.
ICC arrest warrant
The International Criminal Court (ICC) needs to issue an arrest warrant for Bangladesh’s Prime Minister Shiekh Hasina, General Waker-Uz-Zaman, the army chief, and Md Harun Ar Rashid, the new director general (DG) of Rapid Action Battalion (RAB).
The ICC judges are yet to decide on crimes against humanity during the student protests in Bangladesh.
“There are reasonable grounds to believe that the three suspects bear responsibility for the killings of more than one thousand students, the disappearance of dead bodies and injuring tens of thousands of students.
The International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) and Odhikar strongly condemn the violent attacks on peaceful participants in the student protests over government jobs quotas in Bangladesh. These attacks have resulted in the death of one thousand people, including seven students, and the injuries to more than a thousand protesters. FIDH and Odhikar call on the authorities to immediately protect student protesters and allow them to exercise their right to freedom of peaceful assembly.
Internet and mobile services cut off in Bangladesh
Internet and mobile services were cut off in Bangladesh on Friday, following days of violent protests over the allocation of government jobs, with local media reports saying at least 28 people had been killed this week.
The protests, which began weeks ago and escalated sharply on Monday, are the biggest since Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina was re-elected for a fourth consecutive term in a January election that was boycotted by the main opposition parties.
The internet clampdown came after violence escalated on Thursday, as students attempted to impose a “complete shutdown” on the country.
Reports of deaths rose, and protesters attacked the head office of state-run Bangladesh Television, breaking through a main gate and setting vehicles and the reception area on fire, a news producer and a reporter told The Associated Press by phone. They spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals.
Some TV news channels were also taken off the air and the websites of most Bangladesh newspapers were not loading or being updated.
Local media said some 800 inmates broke out of a prison in Narsingdi, north of the capital Dhaka, after protesters stormed the jail and set it on fire on Friday.
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