DHAKA, Bangladesh: Bangladesh observed a day of mourning on Tuesday for more than 200 people killed in recent weeks in violence that erupted from student protests against the South Asian country's quota system for government jobs.
After weeks of peaceful protests by students who wanted to change a system that reserves 30 percent of government jobs for the families of veterans and freedom fighters of Pakistan's 1971 war of independence, violence erupted on July 15 when student wing activists were attacked by the ruling party on the demonstrators. Security forces opened fire, using tear gas and rubber bullets to try to stop the violence.
The anti-quota protests have become the most serious challenge for the Bangladesh government since Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina won a fourth consecutive term in January elections, which the main opposition groups boycotted.
The ruling Awami League and the opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party have often accused each other of fomenting political chaos and violence, most recently ahead of elections marred by a crackdown on several opposition figures.
Government officials – including those at the Bangladesh Secretariat, the top office that houses most of the country's ministers and officials – wore black badges on Tuesday to mourn those killed in the violence.
Bangladesh is slowly getting back to normal, with a strict curfew being eased in recent days. Authorities have also asked all mosques, temples and other religious sites to hold special prayers on Tuesday for the dead.
Later on Tuesday, Hasina visited a government hospital in the capital, Dhaka, where many of the injured were being treated. She asked the hospital management to provide the best possible care.
Also on Tuesday, members of 31 cultural groups tried to hold a march in downtown Dhaka to condemn the death toll in the violence, but were blocked by police. No violence was reported as the singers and other activists sat down in the street and peacefully continued their protests under heavy police cordon.
Home Minister Asaduzaman Khan put the total death toll at 150, while the country's leading Bengali-language daily Prothom Alo said 211 people had been killed since the violence erupted on July 15 and thousands more injured.
Media reports say around 10,000 people have been arrested in the past two weeks in connection with clashes during protests and other attacks on government property. Human rights groups have called for an end to arbitrary arrests, and critics have accused the government of using excessive force to end the violence.
“The mass arrests and arbitrary detention of student protesters is a witch hunt by the authorities to silence anyone who dares to challenge the government, and is a tool to perpetuate a climate of fear,” Smriti Singh, Amnesty International's Regional Director South Asia. , said in a statement on Monday.
“Reports indicate that these arrests are entirely politically motivated, in retaliation for human rights violations,” Singh said.
The government has defended its position, saying that arrests are made on specific charges, after reviewing CCTV footage and based on evidence.
Six protest coordinators, who are in the custody of the Dhaka Metropolitan Police's detective division, issued a statement calling off the protests, but other protesters rejected the video statement, claiming it was coercive.
They say they will protest until all their demands are met, including a public apology from Hasina, the prime minister.
Police said the six coordinators were taken into custody for their safety and their families met them on Monday. A video was released showing the six having lunch with the head of Dhaka's detective branch, Haroon-ur-Rashid.
Human rights activists demanded the release of the six so that they could return to their families.
The protesters do not have a single leader, although the movement has a number of coordinators around the country. A press release attributed to one of the coordinators, Abdul Hanan Massoud, called for protests on Wednesday in educational institutions, courts and main roads. The release cannot be independently verified.
Also on Tuesday, Bangladesh Law Minister Anisul Huq said the government would ban the right-wing Jamaat-e-Islami party and its student wing Islami Chhatra Shibir. Hasina and several other cabinet ministers have accused the party and its student wing of being involved in the violence during the student protests.
Huq said the ruling 14-party alliance led by the Awami League decided on Wednesday that the Jamaat-e-Islami party and its student wing should be formally banned. The details of the ban were not immediately clarified.
The party was a ruling partner of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party under former prime minister Khaleda Zia, Hasina's arch-rival, from 2001-2006. The party actively campaigned in favor of the Pakistan Army and against the creation of an independent Bangladesh in 1971.
Protesters said the 30 percent quota was discriminatory and benefited supporters of Hasina, whose Awami League party led the independence movement, and called for it to be replaced with a merit-based system.
On July 21, the Supreme Court decided to reduce the quota of veterans of the 1971 war to 5 percent. Of the remaining 93 percent of civil service jobs will be merit-based, and the remaining 2 percent will be reserved for ethnic minorities, transgender people and people with disabilities. Two days later, the government adopted the resolution and undertook to implement it.
The status of veterans of the 1971 war in Bangladesh remains a hot-button issue as the quota also extended to women who were raped by Pakistani soldiers and their allies during the war of independence and their children. These women were recognized as “freedom fighters” for the ordeals they endured. Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, Hasina's father, is the independence leader of Bangladesh.
Broadband and mobile data services were restored on Tuesday after a day-long internet outage, but social media platforms, including Facebook, remained blocked. Banks and offices opened under a relaxed curfew. Schools and other educational institutions were closed, with no reopening date yet set, as police continued to crack down on protesters.
