Anti-DEI quota riots kill at least 16

Samson

Samson

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Since July 1, university students have been protesting across Bangladesh to demand the removal of quotas in government jobs after the High Court reinstated a rule that reserves nearly one-third of posts for the descendants of those who participated in the country’s 1971 liberation movement, who are considered likely to favours supporters of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s Awami League party, which led the country’s independence movement.

On Thursday at least 11 people have been killed and hundreds injured in clashes between police and demonstrators as protesting students call “complete shutdown”. They have rejected government’s talks offer.

The death toll is based on two police sources, as the government has yet to announce casualty figures. At least six people were killed on Tuesday.

Bangladesh suspends some mobile internet services and police use tear gas to quell protests but the situation remains volatile.

Following the High Court’s ruling in June, 56 percent of government jobs are now reserved for specific groups, including children and grandchildren of freedom fighters, women, and people from “backward districts”.

Student protesters have clashed with police and members of Bangladesh Chhatra League, a student wing of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s governing Awami League party.

“It’s not just a case of grassroots demonstrations led by the poor. These are university students most of whom are above working class … The fact that you have so many students who are so angry speaks to the desperation of finding jobs. They may not be desperately poor, but they still need to find good, stable jobs.”

About 67 percent of Bangladesh’s 170 million people are aged 15-64 and more than a quarter are aged 15 and 29, according to the International Labour Organization.

An eleventh grade student among those killed. “The reason for the death is a piercing wound in the centre of the chest,” a doctor at City Hospital, where Bhuyian was taken, told the outlet.

“Today we have received multiple similar kinds of injuries that are being treated now,” the doctor added. “Many female patients got injured by blunt weapons. We have received a 10-year-old patient whp had 12 pellets inside the body.”

Amnesty International said their analysis has confirmed the “continuation of a multi-year pattern of violence against protesters, allegedly committed by members of the Bangladesh Chatra League (BCL), a group affiliated with the ruling party”.

Witnesses told the rights group the protests were peaceful before the BCL “before individuals from the BCL started attacking them on 15 July”, according to the report published yesterday.

Witnesses said the attackers wielded “rods, sticks, and clubs with a few even brandishing revolvers” at Dhaka University. Others tried to enter Dhaka Medical College Hospital on July 15, according to a video verified by the rights group.

Two videos verified by the group showed 25-year-old student Abu Sayed shot at close range by two police officers in the north western city of Rangpur. A forensic pathologist told Amnesty Sayed’s wounds were consistent with bird shot. The rights group said Sayed, who died from the wounds, posed no apparent physical threat to officers.





 
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I don't know what's more absurd, folks rioting about not getting government jobs, or them being reserved for such classes like descendants of revolutionaries (I guess everyone keeps a family tree to know?) and admittedly "backwards" (lol) districts...

Then again I don't know what % of jobs are with the government; it could be practically a necessity for some
 
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Senethro said:
Ok but compare how Ivy League education in America has a similar (unintended??????) function of reserving some classes of jobs for loyalists.
Click to expand...
Yes we call that affirmative action in the US. Or we did*. I don't know where the exact phrase "D.E.I." ever got started but I imagine it's designed to put a more softer touch on very the same principle: hiring folks nonetheless out of their league to make the institution look more representative.

*https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Students_for_Fair_Admissions_v._Harvard
 
Klaus Hergersheimer said:
Yes we call that affirmative action in the US. Or we did*. I don't know where the exact phrase "D.E.I." ever got started.
Click to expand...
It derives from corpo speak of the initiallisms of Diversity, Equity, and Incusion.
 
Klaus Hergersheimer said:
Yes we call that affirmative action in the US. Or we did*. I don't know where the exact phrase "D.E.I." ever got started but I imagine it's designed to put a more softer touch on very the same principle: hiring folks nonetheless out of their league to make the institution look more representative.

*https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Students_for_Fair_Admissions_v._Harvard
Click to expand...

Well, actually I meant the guys who aren't there based on affirmative action as well, because they're just plain rich, and gaining the loyalty of the rich elites is more important. That was what I meant.

Sorry I should have been more clear.
 
Bangladesh student protests over jobs escalate, telecoms disrupted

On Friday student demonstrators continued to clash with police and pro-government activists after days of protests, with government buildings torched and telecommunications severely disrupted.

“Just a quarter mile from where I am, there are about six universities, which were demonstrating since morning, and we can still hear gunfire, stun grenades and all sorts of noises coming from that area because the students refused to leave.”

The death toll from Thursday’s violence had risen to 32, the AFP news agency reported on Friday. That number could not be immediately verified.

The death toll could rise with reports of clashes in nearly half of the country’s 64 districts. More than 1,000 people have been injured.

A police statement issued after a near-total shutdown of the nation’s internet – imposed by the government on Thursday – said protesters had torched, vandalised and carried out “destructive activities” on numerous police and government offices.

Among them was the Dhaka headquarters of state broadcaster Bangladesh Television, which remains offline after hundreds of students stormed the premises and set fire to a building.

Student protesters said they would extend their calls to impose a national shutdown on Friday, and urged mosques across the country to hold funeral prayers for those who have been killed.

Al Jazeera’s Chowdhury said the government had been “conciliatory”.

“The law minister announced that the prime minister has instructed him to come to a compromise and sit down with the quota protesters,” he said.

But students he had spoken to said they wanted “police and pro-government student-wing members brought to justice” before they would “even consider sitting with the government”.


Smoke rises from burning vehicles after protesters set them on fire near the Disaster Management Directorate office in Dhaka on July 18
 
Samson said:
High Court reinstated a rule that reserves nearly one-third of posts for the descendants of those who participated in the country’s 1971 liberation movement, who are considered likely to favours supporters of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s Awami League party, which led the country’s independence movement.
Click to expand...

How is this a "DEI quota"
 
Lexicus said:
How is this a "DEI quota"
Click to expand...
The title is obvious clickbait, right? It is referring to the 10% for backwards districts, 10% for women, 5% for minorities and 1% for physically challenged.
 
Several official websites in Bangladesh appeared to be hacked by a group which goes by “THE R3SISTANC3”.

The hacked websites include those of the central bank, the prime minister’s office and police.

The Prime Minister's Office of Bangladesh

 
Bangladesh police given ‘shoot-on-sight’ orders amid national curfew

Police in Bangladesh have been granted “shoot-on-sight” orders and a nationwide curfew has been imposed as student-led protests continue to roil the country, leaving more than 100 people dead.

The curfew, imposed at midnight on Friday, was expected to last until Sunday morning as police tried to bring the swiftly deteriorating security situation under control, with military personnel patrolling the streets of the capital.

The curfew was lifted briefly on Saturday afternoon to allow people to run essential errands, but otherwise people have been ordered to remain at home and all gatherings and demonstrations have been banned. The government has also imposed a communications blackout, with all internet and social media access blocked since Thursday night.

“The public is anxious as people didn’t expect the army to be deployed. But some people are also relieved because there is a great deal of respect for the army in Bangladesh,” he said.

“But the mood is just sombre because so many people died. People don’t understand why there was such a heavy crackdown on student protests that were peaceful.”

Meanwhile, many opposition party leaders – who had expressed support for the student protesters – have been arrested, along with activists and protest organisers.
 

Bangladesh court scraps job quotas after deadly unrest​

Bangladesh's top court has scrapped most of the quotas on government jobs that had sparked violent clashes across the country that have killed more than 100 people.
A third of public sector jobs had been reserved for the relatives of veterans from the country’s war for independence from Pakistan in 1971.
But now the court has ruled just 5% of the roles can be reserved for veterans' relatives.
Law Minister Anisul Huq said the government would implement the ruling within days. Some student leaders have vowed to continue protesting.

Speaking to the BBC, Mr Huq also denied that Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina - who has been in power since 2009 - was losing her grip on Bangladesh.

"In that case you would have seen the mass population of the country to revolt. They have actually supported the government in this turmoil and they have said yes, the government should act to bring the violence to an end," he said.

He blamed opposition forces for joining the protests and destroying "the symbols of Bangladesh's development".

Several protest movement coordinators have told the BBC that action would continue until the government took action.

“We applaud the court's verdict," said one coordinator, Nusrat Tabassum. "But our main demand is with the executive department. Until those demands are implemented, the ongoing nationwide complete shutdown program will continue.”

The students' demands also include justice for protesters killed in recent days, the release of detained protest leaders, the restoration of internet services and resignations of government ministers.

Streets in the capital Dhaka are deserted as a second day of curfew is in force, but sporadic clashes continued even after the supreme court ruling.

About 115 people are known to have died but local media report a much higher casualty figure. At least 50 people were killed on Friday alone.

The Supreme Court ruling orders that 93% of public sector jobs should be recruited on merit, leaving 5% for the family members of the veterans of the country's independence war.

A remaining 2% is reserved for people from ethnic minorities or with disabilities.

Scrapped in 2018 by Ms Hasina’s government, the quota system was reinstated by a lower court last month, sparking the protests.

The government responded with a harsh crackdown, including a curfew and a communications blackout.
Protest coordinators say police and the student wing of the governing Awami League – known as the Bangladesh Chhatra League – have been using brutal force against peaceful demonstrators. The government denies this.
Many people have been detained by the authorities. The family of Nahid Islam, one of the coordinators of the quota reform movement, allege that police left him blindfolded on a Dhaka street at midnight.
His father, Badrul Islam told BBC Bangla that his son was now in hospital and had been tortured "mentally and physically".
The police have not commented.
The unrest has also seen arson attacks on government buildings, police check posts and the capital's metro system, which the interior minister said had been left inoperable. Burnt out vehicles can be seen in most Dhaka neighbourhoods.
Clashes have been reported in other parts of the country and the authorities have not yet caught any of the 800 prisoners who escaped from a prison near Dhaka.
UK-based analyst Kamal Ahmed told the BBC that the re-introduced job quota system had been exploited by the ruling Awami League party.
“The quota system was nothing but the governing Awami League rewarding their supporters and a ploy for entrenching the party’s influence in the future administration,” he said.
The ensuing protests were of "unprecedented intensity" and have expanded to become a "much wider people’s movement” against a backdrop of allegations of corruption, lack of accountability and the escalating cost of living, he said.
Law Minister Anisul Huq denied the quota system was benefiting the Awami League.
"I would say that actually 95% of the members of the ruling party have been either freedom fighters or have been supporters of the freedom fighters. It’s quite natural that they would be benefitting out of it,” he told the BBC.

Bangladesh is one of the fastest growing economies in the world, but that growth has not translated into jobs for university graduates.
Estimates suggest that around 18 million young Bangladeshis are looking for jobs. University graduates face higher rates of unemployment than their less-educated peers.

Clashes and demonstrations in UK and US​

The tensions in Bangladesh have also seen demonstrations take place outside the country.
In the US there was a demonstration outside the White House, mainly involving Bangladeshi students studying in the country. In Times Square in New York, participants displayed banners demanding justice for the students killed over the past few days.
There were also disturbances in east London on Thursday evening as pro- and anti-government groups clashed.
Police said they found two large groups of men fighting among a wider demonstration of several hundred people in Whitechapel, which has a large ethnic Bangladeshi population.
Objects were then thrown at police, injuring two, and cars were damaged.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c6p27g628k6o
 
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How peaceful Bangladesh quota protests morphed into nationwide unrest

On Sunday, the Supreme Court scrapped most of the quotas, saying that 93 percent of government jobs will now be based on merit. But student leaders have pledged to carry on with the protests, demanding the release of jailed protesters and the resignation of officials, including Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan, who they say are responsible for the violence that left at least 131 people dead.

Al Jazeera spoke to medics and a network of journalists to compile a death toll, as authorities have not released casualty figures so far. Prothom Alo and The Daily Star, the two largest Bengali language and English dailies, have reported 146 and 127 deaths, respectively.

More than 70 percent of the deaths have been reported from Dhaka, where streets are strewn with the remnants of thousands of rounds of tear-gas shells, sound grenades, shotgun pellets, rubber bullets and brick chunks.

Aside from two policemen and two ruling party supporters, all of the deceased are either students or ordinary people.

“What will I do with quota reform now? This government has used so much violence to suppress us. We want justice for our fallen brothers and sisters,” Habib told Al Jazeera.

Student leaders are also demanding an apology from Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, who initially defended the quota for veterans and whose party officials dubbed the protesters as “anti-nationals”.

Protesters have called Hasina, who has been in power since 2009, an “autocrat”. The last two elections (2019 and 2024) were marred by vote rigging, widespread irregularities and opposition boycotts.

“Of course, the quota reform alone is not sufficient now,” Asif Nazrul, a professor of law at Dhaka University, told Al Jazeera. “So many students and common people have died in this violent protest, which was definitely instigated by government at first. Someone has to take the responsibility for this tragedy.”

Rezaul Karim Rony, a journalist and the editor of the monthly magazine Joban, told Al Jazeera an overwhelming majority of protesters from the area where he lives in Dhaka were non-students.

“The protest is no longer confined within students as general people have joined them spontaneously,” Rony told Al Jazeera from Mirpur in Dhaka. “As there is pent-up anger among the common people under the autocratic regime of Sheikh Hasina, people have taken these student-led protests as a platform to express their dissatisfaction.”

Rony, the editor of the local magazine, agreed that some opposition leaders have joined protests and indulged in “vandalism”. But he said that the government’s characterisation of protesters was “misleading”. “This is a protest of common people, by the common people now,” he said.

State Minister for Information Mohammad A Arafat told Al Jazeera that the protest has been “hijacked” by vested interests. Students, he said, were fighting for “legitimate demands” of quota reform.

On Saturday, Nahid Islam, a key organiser of the students’ quota reform movement, was allegedly picked up by plainclothes police from a house in the capital. Islam’s family went to the offices of the detective branch of police, but his whereabouts are still unknown.

There has been a complete internet shutdown since Thursday, leading to an information blackout and disruption of normal life.

Ridwanul Alam, a private sector employee, has been frantically trying to recharge his prepaid electricity meter since Saturday morning, as there is no electricity in his home.

Alam first tried bKash, a mobile financial service, to pay the bill, but it didn’t work as there was no internet. His attempt to withdraw cash from an ATM was also unsuccessful.

Economic activities have also been completely halted. The customs house of Chattogram port – which handles over 80 percent of the country’s exports and imports – has not been able to clear any container for the past 40 hours.

Journalists are relentlessly trying to secure ways to gather and file news. Muktadir Rashid, a journalist from the digital portal Bangla Outlook, told Al Jazeera that enforcing the internet blackout is akin to crime now.
 

UAE jails 57 Bangladeshis over protests against own government​

A court in the UAE has handed 57 Bangladeshis long prison terms for holding protests in the Gulf state against their own country’s government.
Three of the unnamed defendants were sentenced to life for “inciting riots in several streets across the UAE on Friday”, while 53 others were jailed for 10 years and one for 11 years, state-run Wam news agency reported.
It cited their court-appointed defence lawyer as arguing during Sunday’s trial that the gatherings had no criminal intent and that the evidence was insufficient.
Protests are effectively illegal in the UAE, where foreigners make up almost 90% of the population. Bangladeshis are the third largest expatriate group.

In Bangladesh, more than 150 people have been killed and 500 arrested during days of violence sparked by student-led demonstrations against quotas on government jobs.
On Monday some of the protest leaders gave the government a 48-hour ultimatum to lift a nationwide curfew and restore internet services. They are also demanding the resignation of officials they blame for violence against demonstrators.
The unrest is among the most serious challenges Sheikh Hasina has faced in 15 consecutive years as the country’s prime minister.

According to Wam, the trial of the 57 Bangladeshis heard that they had “organised large-scale marches in several streets of the UAE in protest against decisions made by the Bangladeshi government”.
“This led to riots, disruption of public security, obstruction of law enforcement, and endangerment of public and private property,” it said. “The police had warned the protesters, ordering them to disperse, to which they were unresponsive”.
The court rejected the defendants’ defence and ordered that they be deported after serving their sentences, Wam said.
There was no immediate comment from Bangladesh’s government. But its consulate in Dubai urged citizens to respect local laws in a social media post on Sunday.
Earlier this month, a court in the UAE handed life sentences to 43 human rights defenders and political dissidents who were convicted of “creating a terrorist organisation”.
Human rights groups severely criticised the mass trial, saying the organisation had been an “independent advocacy group”.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/crgk8gnpg0zo
 
GenMarshall said:
It derives from corpo speak of the initiallisms of Diversity, Equity, and Incusion.
Click to expand...
Thank you. I was aware of what it meant; just not where it all started.

I can't say I follow culture too closely but I don't remember hearing much about it maybe 10 or so years ago. I think the trend was for more environmental consciousness back then in the corpo-world before there was a very sharp swerve to address racial issues (at least in the US) after the Trayvon Martin episode. Just my perception, at least...
 

Scorn as Bangladesh PM weeps at train station damage​

Bangladesh's leader has been accused of crying "crocodile tears" after she was photographed weeping at a train station that was destroyed during anti-government protests.
At leat 150 people have been killed as a result of nationwide clashes between police and university students, with security forces accused of execessive force.
Protesters had been calling for quotas on government jobs to be scrapped.
Online, many accused Ms Hasina of not expressing the same level of sympathy towards those who had died, or their families.

The pictures were taken during Ms Hasina's visit to a metro rail station in the city of Mirpur on Thursday, where ticket vending machines and the signalling control station were shattered. Ms Hasina was pictured frowning and wiping her tears with tissue paper.
"What kind of mentality leads them to destroy facilities that make people's lives easier? Dhaka city was clogged with traffic. The metro rail offered respite. I cannot accept the destruction of this transport facility made with modern technology," Bangladeshi daily The Business Standard quoted the prime minister as saying.
These comments drew the ire of Bangladeshi internet users.
"We lost [hundreds of] students. But PM Sheikh Hasina had the time to go "cry" for a metro rail, not for the people who won't return ever again," said one Twitter user.
"Shedding crocodile tears for a railway track while others [have died]...." another chimed in.
Journalist Zulkarnian Saer, who has in the past spoken out against the government, said: "Hasina had the time to visit the vandalised train station, but she did not visit [the families] of the students... shot dead [during protests]."
Some called the photographs an attempt to drive attention away from deaths from the protests.
"No doubt that she went there to ... get some attention and empathy," said one Facebook user.
Security forces have been accused of using excessive force to quell the unrest, but Ms Hasina had instead blamed her political opponents for the wave of violence.
Her government is working to "suppress these militants and create a better environment", the 76-year-old said earlier this week, adding she was "forced" to impose a curfew for public safety.

The protests, mostly by university students, began about two weeks ago over quotas imposed on government jobs.
Bangladesh had earlier reserved about 30% of its high-paying government jobs for relatives of those who fought in the country's war for independence from Pakistan in 1971.
On Sunday, Bangladesh's top court rolled back most of these quotas and ruled that 93% of roles would now be filled on merit - meeting a key demand of protesters.
The wave of unrest is an unprecedented test for Ms Hasina, who secured her fourth straight term as prime minister in January, in a controversial election boycotted by the country's main opposition parties.
Political analysts told the BBC that Ms Hasina's authoritarian regime and "over-politicising" of Bangladesh's war for independence from Pakistan in 1971 have angered large sections of society.
Limited internet connectivity was restored on Tuesday after a nationwide blackout since last Thursday.
Some student leaders have vowed to continue protesting to demand justice for protesters killed and detained in recent days. They are also seeking the resignation of government ministers and an apology from Ms Hasina.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cxw2dyv74n0o
 
Videos reveal brutality during Bangladesh protests

An image is worth a thousand words – sometimes, it can even stir a nation.

In Bangladesh, it was the image of university student Abu Sayeed standing with open arms, stick in hand, facing heavily-armed police alone which many credit as the turning point in the recent widespread protest in the country against quotas in government jobs.

Within seconds, as the video shows, the young man was shot at – but still he continues to stand, even as the sounds of more shots ring out. He collapses a few minutes later.

The highly-respected Bengali daily Prothom Alo and the AFP news agency say more than 200 people were killed in the violence, including several students and three police officers. Official government statistics stand at 147, according to the home minister.

Bangladeshi junior minister of information and broadcasting Mohammad Ali Arafat agreed the video of Mr Sayeed being shot appeared “unlawful”.

“That was absolutely vivid and clear,” he said. “The guy was standing stretching his hands and chest, very short distance he was shot.”

But a spokesman for Dhaka Metropolitan police, Faruk Hossain, defended their actions, saying police fired only in self-defence.

“Police use force to save life and property. Any police officer opened (fire) only when it is questioned of private (self) defence situation,” Mr Hossain said in a WhatsApp message.

Video on beeb link, I cannot kind it on youtube.
 
Students renew Bangladesh protests, call for nationwide civil disobedience

Protesters in Bangladesh have taken to the streets to demand justice for the more than 200 people killed in last month’s student-led demonstrations over quotas in government jobs.

The large protests on Saturday came as student leaders called for a nationwide civil disobedience campaign, heaping further pressure on Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s government.

Reporting from Dhaka, Al Jazeera’s Tanvir Chowdhury said clashes took place between protesters and police in the Gazipur and Comilla districts in the capital’s outskirts.

He added that the student movement had turned “into a public movement“, noting that people from all walks of life had joined Saturday’s protests calling for the government to resign.

The government has been weathering a worsening backlash over the deadly police crackdown that resulted in deaths of at least 200 people including 32 children, as well as hundreds of pellet gun injuries.

UN experts have called for an immediate end to the violent crackdown against protesters as well as accountability for human rights violations.

UN Human Rights Chief Volker Turk today called on the government to disclose full details about its crackdown on protests and to provide the details of those killed, injured or detained for the benefit of their families.

European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell also called for an international probe into the “excessive and lethal force against protesters”.

 
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