A Bangladesh student group has vowed to resume protests that sparked a deadly police crackdown and nationwide unrest unless several of their leaders are released from custody.

Bangladesh student protests: leaders arrested or disappeared

Last week’s violence killed at least 205 people – the majority the victims of police violence – in one of the biggest upheavals of prime minister Sheikh Hasina’s 15-year tenure.

Army patrols and a nationwide curfew remain in place more than a week after they were imposed, and a police dragnet has scooped up thousands of protesters including at least half a dozen student leaders.

Members of Students Against Discrimination, whose campaign against Bangladesh civil service job quotas precipitated the unrest, said they would end their week-long protest moratorium.

Representative Abdul Hannan Masud said the group’s chief Nahid Islam and others “should be freed and the cases against them must be withdrawn”.

Masud, who did not disclose his location because he was hiding from authorities, also demanded “visible actions” be taken against government ministers and police officers responsible for the deaths of protesters:

Otherwise, Students Against Discrimination will be forced to launch tough protests… from Monday 29 July…

Islam and two other senior members of the protest group were forcibly discharged from hospital in Bangladesh’s capital Dhaka on Friday 26 July. They were taken away by a group of plainclothes detectives.

He told AFP last week he was being treated at the hospital for injuries police inflicted on him during an earlier round of detention. Islam said he was in fear for his life.

Islam’s mother Momotaz Nahar told reporters outside Bangladesh’s national detective agency, after unsuccessfully asking officers to allow a visit with him, that:

I haven’t seen him since he was picked up… We are worried about his life… I want my son back.

Home minister Asaduzzaman Khan has said the trio were taken into custody for their own safety but did not confirm if they had been formally arrested.

Deadly police violence against peaceful protesters

At least 9,000 people have been arrested nationwide since the unrest began, according to Prothom Alo, Bangladesh’s largest daily newspaper.

Khan said 147 people had been killed in clashes so far in the government’s first toll, published a day after Students Against Discrimination gave its own preliminary count of 266.

Khan told reporters that police had operated with restraint and only fired on demonstrators to protect government buildings:

Despite the killing of their fellow officers, they showed extreme levels of patience. But when they saw that the properties could not be protected, then police were forced to open fire.

In reality, protests had remained largely peaceful until attacks on demonstrators by police and pro-government student groups last week.

A curfew imposed last weekend remains in force but it has been progressively eased through the week, a sign of the Hasina government’s confidence that order was gradually being restored.

One small street rally held in Dhaka on Sunday 28 July to demand Hasina’s resignation was quickly dispersed by police.

Bangladesh’s mobile internet network was restored on 28 July afternoon, 11 days after a nationwide blackout imposed at the height of the unrest.

Fixed line broadband connections were restored on Tuesday 23 July but the vast majority of Bangladesh internet users rely on mobile devices to connect with the world.

Bangladesh: righting an injustice

Protests began over the reintroduction of a quota scheme reserving more than half of all Bangladesh government jobs for certain groups. As the Canary previously reported:

The Awami League government originally established the system after 1972 to help disadvantaged groups. Now, it faces criticism for favouring individuals with political connections, rather than merit. This has caused frustration among young people, who feel their job opportunities are being unfairly limited…

In 2012, the Bangladesh Public Service Commission increased the percentage of reserved jobs to 56% by adding a 1% quota for disabled people. In 2018, the government abolished the first and second-class job quota system in response to protests. However, on 5 June, the High Court ruled this cancellation as unlawful and the government has appealed the decision.

With around 18 million young people in Bangladesh out of work, according to government figures, the move deeply upset graduates facing an acute employment crisis.

The Supreme Court cut the number of reserved jobs last week but fell short of protesters’ demands to scrap the quotas entirely.

All this comes against a backdrop of Hasina’s government misusing state institutions to entrench its hold on power and stamping out dissent, including the extrajudicial killing of opposition activists.

Feature image via Al Jazeera – YouTube

Additional reporting via Agence France-Presse

By The Canary

This post was originally published on Canary.