At least 32 children were among the dead last month, the United Nations said. (FILE)
Dhaka:
Bangladeshi student leaders said Saturday they would continue a planned nationwide civil disobedience campaign until Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina resigned following last month’s deadly police crackdown on protesters.
Demonstrations against civil service labor quotas led to days of chaos in July, with more than 200 people killed in one of the worst unrests of Hasina’s 15-year term.
The deployment of troops briefly restored order, but crowds returned to the streets in large numbers this week ahead of a large-scale non-cooperation movement aimed at paralyzing the government, due to begin on Sunday.
Students Against Discrimination, the group responsible for organizing the first protests, turned down an offer to speak with Hasina earlier in the day before announcing that their campaign would continue until the prime minister and her government step down.
“She must resign and face justice,” Nahid Islam, the group’s leader, told a crowd of thousands of people at a monument to national heroes in the capital Dhaka, to loud cheers.
Students Against Discrimination have asked their fellow countrymen to stop paying taxes and utility bills from Sunday to increase pressure on the government.
They have also asked government workers and workers in the country’s economically vital garment factories to strike.
“She must go because we don’t need this authoritarian government,” 20-year-old Nijhum Yasmin told AFP during one of the many protests that took place around Dhaka on Saturday.
“Did we liberate the country only to see our brothers and sisters shot dead by this regime?”
The threatened non-cooperation campaign deliberately evokes a historic campaign of civil disobedience during Bangladesh’s 1971 liberation war against Pakistan.
That earlier movement was led by Hasina’s father Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the country’s independence leader, and is remembered by Bangladeshis as part of a proud struggle against tyranny.
“Now the tables have been turned,” Illinois State University political professor Ali Riaz told AFP.
“The foundations of the regime have been shaken, the aura of invincibility has disappeared,” he added. “The question is whether Hasina is ready to look for a way out or fight to the last.”
32 children killed
Hasina, 76, has ruled Bangladesh since 2009 and won her fourth straight election in January after a vote without real opposition.
Her government is accused by rights groups of abusing state institutions to tighten its grip on power and stamp out dissent, including the extrajudicial killing of opposition activists.
Demonstrations began in early July over the reintroduction of a quota system – now overturned by the Supreme Court of Bangladesh – that reserved more than half of all government jobs for certain groups.
With around 18 million young Bangladeshis unemployed, according to government figures, the move has upset graduates facing an acute employment crisis.
The protests had remained largely peaceful until attacks on demonstrators by police and pro-government student groups.
Hasina’s government eventually imposed a nationwide curfew, deployed troops and shut down the country’s mobile internet network for 11 days to restore order.
But the crackdown prompted a barrage of criticism from abroad and failed to quell widespread resentment at home.
After Friday prayers in the Muslim-majority country, large numbers of people returned to the streets, heeding a call from student leaders to pressure the government for more concessions.
Josep Borrell, the European Union’s foreign policy chief, this week called for an international investigation into the “excessive and deadly use of force against demonstrators.”
Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan told reporters over the weekend that security forces had operated with restraint but were “forced to open fire” to defend government buildings.
At least 32 children were among the dead last month, the United Nations said Friday.
(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
