Bangladesh imposes nationwide curfew as deadly protests over government jobs escalate

DHAKA, Bangladesh -Following days of fatal riots over government job allotment, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s government issued a statewide curfew and ordered the deployment of armed personnel late Friday.

Obaidul Quader, the ruling Awami League party’s general secretary, made the remark after police and security personnel opened fire on demonstrators earlier Friday and banned any meetings in the city. Several people died, according to media accounts.

Quader stated that the military was deployed to assist the civilian administration in maintaining order.

The protests, which began weeks ago but have increased rapidly this week, are the most serious challenge to Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina since she was elected for a fourth consecutive term in January. The main opposition organizations boycotted the polls.

The number of individuals slain on Friday varied, with Independent Television claiming 17 and Somoy TV reporting 30. An Associated Press reporter saw 23 bodies at Dhaka Medical College and Hospital, but it was unclear whether all of them died on Friday.

According to local media, 22 people were killed on Thursday in what had been the bloodiest day of demonstrations yet, as protesting students attempted to impose a “complete shutdown” of the country.

Authorities could not be reached immediately to confirm the number of dead.

The upheaval has exposed flaws in Bangladesh’s administration and economy, as well as the dissatisfaction of recent graduates who are unable to find solid jobs.

The government has deployed police and paramilitary personnel throughout the capital to lock down colleges and disperse protesters. On Wednesday, institutions, including the country’s major, canceled classes and locked dormitories, and on Friday, Dhaka police announced a ban on all gatherings and rallies.

An Associated Press correspondent witnessed border guards firing on a gathering of over 1,000 demonstrators assembled outside the headquarters of state-run Bangladesh Television, which had been attacked and set on fire the day before.

Border guards fired rifles and sound grenades at the throng, while police used tear gas and rubber bullets. Bullets littered the streets, which were also smeared with blood.

Internet and mobile data services in Dhaka were widely disrupted on Thursday night and remained unavailable on Friday. Facebook and WhatsApp were also not loading. It coincided with a broad internet outage on Friday that delayed airplanes, banks, media outlets, and businesses around the world, but the disruptions in Bangladesh were significantly more severe than elsewhere.

According to a statement from the country’s Telecommunications Regulatory Commission, they were unable to provide service after demonstrators invaded their data center on Thursday and set fire to some equipment. The Associated Press was unable to independently verify this.

Student protestors said they would continue their calls for a shutdown on Friday, and encouraged mosques around the country to offer funeral prayers for those killed. Major universities have announced that they will close their doors until tensions subside.

The demonstrators are calling for an end to a quota system that reserves up to 30% of government employment for relatives of veterans who participated in Bangladesh’s 1971 war of independence from Pakistan.

They claim that the system is unfair and favors followers of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s Awami League party, which led the independence fight, and want it replaced with a merit-based system.

However, Hasina has defended the quota system, claiming that veterans deserve the highest honor for their sacrifices to the war regardless of political affiliation.

The Bangladeshi leader is credited with stabilizing the country’s growth, but growing inflation, fueled in part by the global turbulence caused by the conflict in Ukraine, has generated labor unrest and displeasure with the administration.

Even though work prospects have increased in some areas of the private sector, many people prefer government jobs because they are perceived as more stable and rewarding. However, there aren’t enough jobs to go around—each year, around 400,000 graduates fight for approximately 3,000 civil service positions.

“What is unfolding in Bangladesh is deeply unsettling for a generation that only asked for a fair opportunity in public service recruitment,” said Saad Hammadi, a freedom of expression advocate at the Balsillie School of International Affairs in Canada. “That a peaceful protest against a state policy would slip into the peak of lawlessness shows the government’s lack of farsightedness and inefficient policy governance,” Hammadi told reporters.

“The shutdown of the internet exacerbates the situation. Local news sites are inaccessible, and individuals in the country are cut off from the rest of the world, all under the guise of the state carrying out sweeping operations that have frequently resulted in major human rights violations,” he noted via email.

Bangladesh has already shut down internet services in protest-affected areas as a means of suppressing dissent by opposition parties. Internet watchdog Access Now reported three shutdowns in the country in 2023, all of which coincided with opposition protests and were limited to a single city or district. That followed six shutdowns in 2022.

Last year, CIVICUS, a charity that monitors civic liberties across the world, degraded Bangladesh to “closed,” the worst classification it could bestow, along with China and Venezuela, following a crackdown on the country’s opposition members and sympathizers ahead of the national election.

The main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party has endorsed the protesting students and pledged to hold its own demonstrations, and many of their followers have joined them. On Friday, police sprayed tear gas at a few hundred BNP supporters before arresting senior BNP leader Ruhul Kabir Rizvi.

The Awami League and the BNP have frequently accused each other of inciting political disorder and violence, most recently ahead of the country’s national election, which was marked by a crackdown on various opposition members, with Hasina’s government accusing the party of intending to disrupt the vote.

Hasina’s government had already halted job quotas in response to massive student protests in 2018, but this month, Bangladesh’s High Court overturned that judgment and reinstated the quotas after relatives of 1971 veterans filed petitions, sparking the fresh demonstrations.

The Supreme Court has stayed that verdict awaiting an appeal hearing, and stated in a statement that it will hear the case on Sunday.

In a televised address on Wednesday, Hasina urged demonstrators to “wait with patience” for the court ruling, adding she is confident they “will get justice” and “will not be disappointed.”