DHAKA, Bangladesh: Bangladesh observed a day of mourning on Tuesday to commemorate more than 200 people killed in recent weeks in violence that developed from student protests over the South Asian country's quota system for government jobs.
After weeks of peaceful protests by students seeking to change the system — which reserves 30 percent of government jobs for families of veterans and freedom fighters of the 1971 war of independence from Pakistan — violence erupted on July 15 when activists from a student wing of the ruling party attacked protesters. Security officials opened fire and used tear gas and rubber bullets to try to quell the violence.
The quota protests posed the most serious challenge to Bangladesh's government since Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina won a fourth consecutive term in January elections boycotted by the main opposition groups.
The ruling Awami League and the opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party have often accused each other of fueling political chaos and violence, most recently in the run-up to the election, which was marred by a crackdown on several opposition figures.
Government officials – including those at the Bangladesh Secretariat, the highest office that contains most of the country's ministers and bureaucrats – wore black badges on Tuesday to mourn those killed in the violence.
Bangladesh is slowly creeping back to normal with the strict curfew eased in recent days. The authorities also asked all mosques, temples and other religious installations to organize 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 authorities to ensure the best possible care.
Also on Tuesday, members of 31 cultural groups tried to hold a procession in central Dhaka condemning the deaths in the violence but the police blocked it. No violence was reported as singers and other activists took to the streets and continued the protests peacefully amid a heavy police cordon.
Home Minister Asaduzzaman 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, while thousands of others had been injured.
Media reports said around 10,000 people have been arrested in the past two weeks in connection with clashes at protests and other attacks on government properties. Rights groups have called for an end to arbitrary arrests, and critics have accused the government of using excessive force to curb the violence.
“The mass arrest 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 further perpetuate a climate of fear,” Smriti Singh, Regional Director for South Asia at Amnesty International, said in a statement on the monday.
“Reports suggest that these arrests are entirely politically motivated, in retaliation for the exercise of human rights,” Singh said.
The government has defended its position, saying the arrests were made on specific charges and reviewed CCTV footage and on the basis of evidence.
Six of the protest coordinators held in custody by the Dhaka Metropolitan Police's detective department released a statement calling off the protests, but other protesters rejected the video statement, claiming it was coerced.
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 posted showing the six having a meal with Dhaka Detective Branch Chief Harun-or-Rashid.
Rights activists have called for the six to be released so they can return to their families.
The protesters have no single leader, although the movement has a number of coordinators across the country. A press release attributed to a coordinator, Abdul Hannan Masooud, called for protests on Wednesday at educational institutions, courts and major roads. The release could not 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 ministers have accused the party and its student wing of playing a role in the violence during the student protests.
Huq said the ruling Awami League-led 14-party alliance had decided to officially ban the Jamaat-e-Islami party and its student wing on Wednesday. Details of the ban were not immediately made clear.
The party was a government partner of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party under former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia, Hasina's arch-rival, from 2001-2006. The party had actively campaigned in favor of Pakistan's military and against the creation of an independent Bangladesh in 1971.
Protesters have said the 30 percent quota was discriminatory and favored supporters of Hasina, whose Awami League party led the independence movement, and called for it to be replaced by a merit-based system.
On July 21, the Supreme Court ordered that the 1971 war veteran quota be cut to 5 percent. Of the remainder, 93 percent of civil service positions would be merit-based, while the remaining 2 percent would be reserved for members of ethnic minorities, transgender people, and people with disabilities. Two days later, the government accepted the decision and promised to implement the decision.
The status of 1971 war veterans remains a charged issue in Bangladesh because the quota also applied to women who were raped by Pakistani soldiers and their collaborators during the war of independence – and their children. These women have been recognized as “freedom fighters” for the ordeal they were subjected to. Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, Hasina's father, is Bangladesh's independence leader.
Both 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 battle protesters.
