Dhaka, 3 August 2024 (TDI): Bangladeshi student leaders said on Saturday they would carry on a planned nationwide civil disobedience campaign until Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina resigned following July’s deadly police crackdown on protesters.
Rallies against civil service job quotas started days of mayhem last month that killed over 200 people in some of the worst unrest of Hasina’s 15-year rule.
Troop deployments briefly restored order but protesters returned to the streets in huge numbers this week ahead of an all-out non-cooperation movement aimed at paralyzing the government planned to start on Sunday.
Students Against Discrimination, the group responsible for organizing the initial demonstrations, rebuffed an offer of talks with PM Hasina earlier in the day before announcing their campaign would continue until the she and her government step down.
She must resign and face trial, Nahid Islam, the group’s leader, told a crowd of thousands at a monument to national heroes in Dhaka to roars of approval.
Students Against Discrimination have asked Bangladeshis to cease paying taxes and utility bills from Sunday to pile pressure on the government.
They have also urged government workers and laborers in the country’s economically vital garment factories to strike.
Hasina, 76, has ruled the country since 2009 and won her fourth consecutive victory in January after a vote without genuine opposition.
Her government is accused by rights groups of misusing state institutions to entrench its hold on power and stamp out opponents, including the extrajudicial killing of opposition activists.
Protests erupted in early July over the reintroduction of a quota scheme — since scaled back by the country’s top court — that reserved more than half of all government sector jobs for certain groups.
With around eighteen million young Bangladeshis out of work, according to government figures, the decision upset graduates facing an acute employment crisis.
The demonstrations had remained largely peaceful until attacks on protesters by police and pro-government student groups.
