Dhaka: Tens of thousands of Bangladeshi citizens took to the streets on Thursday, joining university students demanding an overhaul of how government jobs are distributed.
The protests were triggered when the High Court reinstated a quota system for government jobs. This decision overturned a 2018 move by Hasina’s government to abolish the system, which reserved 30% of jobs for families of freedom fighters from the 1971 independence war. The Supreme Court later suspended the High Court order and scheduled a hearing for August 7. Despite this, students escalated their protests after Hasina labeled them “razakar,” a term for those who collaborated with Pakistan during the 1971 war.
The protests have turned increasingly violent in recent days, resulting in a groundswell of anger against Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina after she deployed the police and paramilitary forces to tame protesters.
As of Thursday, 32 people, mostly students, had been killed and hundreds of others injured. Large areas of Dhaka, the capital, remained empty, and the city shut down its only metro rail service.
Near-daily marches this month have demanded 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 war against Pakistan.
Critics say the scheme benefits children of pro-government groups that back Hasina, 76, who has ruled the country since 2009 and won her fourth consecutive election in January after a vote without genuine opposition.
On August 7, the Supreme Court is due to hear the government’s appeal against a high court verdict that ordered the reinstatement of the quota. Hasina has asked the students to be patient until the verdict.
Her administration is accused by rights groups of capturing state institutions and stamping out dissent, including by the extrajudicial killing of opposition activists.
Mubashar Hasan, a Bangladesh expert at the University of Oslo in Norway, said the protests had grown into a wider expression of discontent with Hasina’s autocratic rule.
“They are protesting against the repressive nature of the state,” he told AFP.
“Protesters are questioning Hasina’s leadership, accusing her of clinging onto power by force,” he added.
“The students are in fact calling her a dictator.”
Bangladeshis reported widespread mobile internet outages around the country on Thursday, two days after internet providers cut off access to Facebook — the protest campaign’s key organising platform.
