Bloodied bodies with gunshot wounds being carted to hospitals; armed police kettling and attacking students in the streets; female protestors covering their faces and running from tear gas and burning cars as other students are beaten with sticks. These were just some of the brutal scenes coming out of Bangladesh last week.
What started on university campuses as peaceful student protests against a controversial government quota on civil-service jobs has descended into death and destruction. Violence broke out after government-backed counter-protestors began attacking students, thus mobilizing tens of thousands more students from across Bangladesh. Police officers, including the notorious Rapid Action Battalion (RAB)—which has been accused in the past of human-rights abuses and even sanctioned by the United States—were involved in violent clashes, and have been accused of using excessive force in the form of rubber bullets, tear gas, and stun grenades, as well as using firearms to shoot students. Nearly 200 students have been killed, with thousands more injured.
The government has also deployed military forces, and internet and communications blackouts and curfews are in place. Amid allegations of police abducting and torturing students, around 2,400 arrests have been made. The government’s use of lethal weapons and “unlawful force” against students has been called out by human-rights groups including Amnesty International, and global solidarity in the form of protests and rallies have taken place in countries including the US, Australia, India, Nepal, in the UAE, where a court has sentenced 57 protestors to prison, and in the UK.
One of those who attended, and helped organize, a solidarity rally in east London is Jennifer*, a British-Bengali post-graduate law student living in London. She explains how she first heard about the protests: “My cousin, who moved to the UK from Bangladesh a year or so ago to study here, has friends who are students in Bangladesh who were telling him about violence and police brutality,” she says. “He’s been sharing videos with me of students, including female protestors, being beaten by police officers.”
The original student demonstrations began after Bangladesh’s High Court decided to reinstate an old quota system, which allocates 30% of all government jobs to the children and grandchildren of those who fought for Bangladesh in its war of independence against Pakistan in 1971, despite these descendants making up less than 0.02% of the population. “Students have also complained about government cronyism when granting the status of ‘descendent,’ with many saying you can buy the certification if you have enough money,” Jennifer explains.
Around another 30% of these jobs are split between a number of marginalized groups and ethnic minorities, but the students are not protesting these. This leaves only about a third of the country’s most prestigious jobs—those most likely to provide the opportunity for upwards social mobility—for the thousands of Bangladeshi students who graduate every year. This, teamed with the country’s economic instability and youth unemployment problem, adds up to an unpredictable future for students.
Jennifer, whose parents moved to the UK from Bangladesh before she was born, still has family there, and as the violence has escalated she has become more concerned for them. “My cousin’s friend was shot and killed by counter-protesters, and many of his other friends were in constant danger because the government had declared a shoot-on-sight policy across the country,” she explains. “As soon as the internet went out, we feared for the worst. This tactic has been used by the government before, and it’s only when it comes back up [that] you see the scale of the violence. We’re still unable to get through to family there, to my auntie. We feel helpless, and so I wanted to show my solidarity.”
Last week, Jennifer, 27, and fellow members of Nijjor Manush, a Bangladeshi community group, organized a rally and teach-in at an east London park. It was attended by over 200 people, many of whom were students. “As a group, and as individuals, we were getting messages from the diaspora in the UK asking us if we can do something. People wanted to rally, to protest, because everyone was just so shocked at the images, it was like a call from the community,” she says. “And because unlike some of the other UK protests, we’re not aligned to any of the political parties in Bangladesh—who are currently blaming each other for what’s happening—we were a safe space to make a stand in support of the student movement, and also teach people the history of British involvement in the training of the Rapid Action Battalion, the very forces attacking students, which many people don’t know about.”
In addition to the rally, Nijjor Manush has co-ordinated a statement with 200 British university academics, workers, and student groups calling for an end to the Bangladeshi government’s repression of students, and the British government’s training of Bangladeshi police forces such as the Rapid Action Battalion.
Back in Bangladesh, the supreme court has overturned the ruling and reduced the quota for descendants of freedom fighters to 5%, and marginalized groups to 2%. But the students now have other demands, including the resignations of certain cabinet ministers, police officers, and university vice-chancellors; an apology from the prime minister; compensation for the families of students who have been killed; and protections for protestors and faculty. Students in Bangladesh, where the internet has started to return following an 11-day blackout, have vowed to return to protesting if their demands are not met.
*name changed
