Students block a rail track as they protest to demand a merit-based system for civil service jobs in Dhaka on July 10, 2024.
| Photo Credit: AFP

Bangladesh’s top court on July 10 temporarily suspended quotas for coveted government jobs after thousands of students staged nationwide protests against what they call a discriminatory system, lawyers said.

The quota system reserves more than half of well-paid and massively over-subscribed civil service posts, totalling hundreds of thousands of government jobs, for specific groups including children of liberation heroes.

Students launched protests earlier this month, demanding a merit-based system, with demonstrations on Wednesday blocking highways and railway lines.

“We will not return to classrooms until our demand is met,” protest leader Rasel Ahmed of Chittagong University told AFP.

The quota system was abolished in 2018 after weeks of protests, but reinstated in June by Dhaka’s High Court, sparking fury from students.

The Supreme Court on Wednesday suspended that order for a month, said lawyer Shah Monjurul Hoque, who represents two students seeking to end the quota system.

Mr. Hoque said that Chief Justice Obaidul Hassan had also requested that students return to class.

Despite the call, student groups continued to block key highways and railway tracks, bringing traffic movement in much of the capital Dhaka and several major cities to a halt.

“This (court) order is temporary. We want a permanent executive order from the government, saying that the quotas are abolished, except some quotas for the disabled and minorities,” said Parvez Mosharraf, a student at Dhaka University.

He was among dozens of students who laid timber logs on a railway track at Dhaka’s Karwan Bazar, forcing the halt of train services connecting the capital to northern Bangladesh.

‘Limited number of jobs’

The quota system reserves 30% of government posts for children of those who fought to win Bangladeshi independence in 1971, 10% for women, and 10% for residents of specific districts.

Students said only those quotas supporting ethnic minorities and disabled people — 6% of jobs — should remain.

“We don’t also want the job quotas for women because women are no longer lagging behind,” female student Meena Rani Das, 22, said.

“Women are marching ahead with their talents. But the quota system is creating obstacles and snatching our rights.”

Critics say the system benefits children of pro-government groups, who back Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.

Her father, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, was Bangladesh’s founding leader.

Ms. Hasina, 76, won her fourth consecutive general election in January, in a vote without genuine opposition parties, with a widespread boycott and a major crackdown against her political opponents.

Critics accuse Bangladeshi courts of rubber-stamping decisions made by her government.

Ms. Hasina has condemned the protests, saying the matter had been settled by the court.

“Students are wasting their time,” Ms. Hasina said on Sunday, adding there was “no justification for the anti-quota movement”.

Thousands of students on Wednesday threw up barricades across key intersections in Dhaka, as well as blocking major highways connecting the capital to other cities, police said.

Hemayetul Islam, deputy police chief in the northwestern city of Rajshahi said that “at least 200 students” blocked the highway to Dhaka.

“Brilliant students no longer get the jobs they want because of this quota system,” said Halimatuz Sadia, a protester and physics student at Chittagong University.

“You work hard only to find out that there are only a limited number of jobs available,” she added.

Students and job aspirants hold placards during a protest in Dhaka demanding the reinstatement of the Bangladesh government circular published in 2018 that abolished the quota system in government services.
| Photo Credit: AFP

Thousands of Bangladeshi university students threw roadblocks across key highways on July 7, demanding the end of “discriminatory” quotas for coveted government jobs, including reserving posts for children of liberation heroes.

Students in almost all major universities took part, demanding a merit-based system for well-paid and massively over-subscribed civil service jobs.

“It’s a do-or-die situation for us,” protest coordinator Nahidul Islam told AFP, during marches at Dhaka University.

“Quotas are a discriminatory system,” the 26-year-old added. “The system has to be reformed”.

The current system reserves more than half of posts, totalling hundreds of thousands of government jobs.

That includes 30 percent reserved for children of those who fought to win Bangladeshi independence in 1971, 10% for women, and 10% set aside for specific districts.

Students said only those quotas supporting ethnic minorities and disabled people – 6% of jobs – should remain.

Critics say the system benefits children of pro-government groups, who back Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.

Her father, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, was Bangladesh’s founding leader.

Ms. Hasina, 76, won her fourth consecutive general election in January, in a vote without genuine opposition parties, with a widespread boycott and a major crackdown against her political opponents.

Critics accuse Bangladeshi courts of rubber-stamping decisions made by her government.

The system was initially abolished after weeks of student protests in 2018.

But in June, Dhaka’s High Court rolled that back, saying the cancellation had been invalid.

Wasting their time

Ms. Hasina has condemned the protests, saying the matter had been settled by the court.

“Students are wasting their time,” Ms. Hasina told female activists from her party on Sunday, Bangladeshi newspapers reported.

“After the court’s verdict, there is no justification for the anti-quota movement.”

Protests began earlier in July and have grown in size.

“We will bury the quota system”, students chanted on Sunday in Bangladesh’s second city Chittagong, where hundreds of protesters marched.

In Dhaka, hundreds of students disrupted traffic for hours, police said.

At the elite Jahangirnagar University, at least 500 students blocked the highway connecting the capital with southeastern Bangladesh “for two hours”, local police chief A.F.M. Shahed told AFP.

Bin Yamin Molla, a protest leader, said at least 30,000 students participated in the protests, although the number could not be verified.

Bangladesh was one of the world’s poorest countries when it gained independence in 1971, but it has grown an average of more than six percent each year since 2009.

Hasina has presided over that breakneck economic growth, with per capita income in the country of 170 million people overtaking India in 2021.

But much of that growth has been on the back of the mostly female factory workforce powering its garment export industry, and economists say there is an acute crisis of jobs for millions of university students.

Dhaka:

Bangladeshi police clashed on Tuesday with thousands of garment workers demanding fair wages for the clothing they make for major Western brands, a day after similar protests left at least two people dead. Police said tens of thousands of workers at dozens of factories had launched strikes in Ashulia and Gazipur, the country’s largest industrial city, with authorities firing tear gas and rubber bullets as crowds smashed up factories and blocked roads.

Gazipur alone is home to more than a thousand plants that make clothing for brands such as H&M and Gap.

“Workers hit the streets as their salaries can no longer cover rising food expenses,” said Al Kamran, a senior garment union leader in Ashulia.

Bangladesh is one of the world’s largest garment exporters, with the industry accounting for 85 percent of the South Asian country’s $55 billion in annual exports.

But conditions are dire for many of its four million apparel workers.

“Some 15,000 of the workers joined protests for a wage hike at separate places in Ashulia,” Mahmud Naser, deputy police chief of the Ashulia industrial area, told AFP.

Union leader Kamran disputed those figures, reporting some 50,000 workers had downed tools in Ashulia alone, with soaring prices a key driver.

The cost of some basic foodstuffs, like potatoes and onions, had more than doubled since last year, Kamran said.

“House rents have also spiked. The only thing that has not increased is salaries.” 

Taslima Akter, the head of the Garment Sramik Samhati union, has said the compensation manufacturers are offering is “less than what a worker got in 2017” once inflation and currency depreciation were taken into account.

Police said protesters had set fire to tyres, broken windows at factories and blocked a key highway connecting the industrial area with the capital Dhaka.

Officers responded by firing “rubber bullets and tear gas”, said Naser, the deputy chief in Ashulia, adding there were no reports of injuries.

The protests erupted early last week, but violence escalated on Monday when tens of thousands left their shifts and staged protests in Gazipur, where a six-storey factory was torched by workers, leading to the death of one labourer. 

Another worker was killed during clashes between police and protesters.

Bangladesh is home to around 3,500 garment factories making clothing for some of the world’s largest retailers and brands, but the basic monthly wage for workers is just 8,300 taka ($75).

Unions said the workers vented their anger on the streets after the powerful manufacturers’ association offered a 25 percent raise, ignoring demands for a new monthly minimum basic wage of 23,000 taka — nearly a threefold increase.

The South Asian country of nearly 170 million has overtaken its neighbour India in per capita income, with the garment industry at the centre of its impressive growth over the past two decades.

But wage protests pose a major challenge to Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, who has ruled the country with an iron fist since 2009. A resurgent opposition has challenged her rule as she readies for elections due before January.

Her government set up a panel this year to set a new minimum wage.

Unions say that garment factory owners — who include ministers and influential lawmakers — have played a role in fixing the minimum wage during past negotiations.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Dhaka:

Bangladesh’s main opposition leader was detained by authorities on Sunday morning, a day after giant protests against the prime minister ahead of elections due in three months, his party said.

“Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir has been picked up by officers of the law enforcing agency,” the Bangladesh Nationalist Party said in a statement.

“He has been detained by police officers,” Shamaruh Mirza, Alamgir’s daughter who lives in Australia, told AFP.

Detective Branch of @bd_police picked up BNP Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir from his Gulshan residence in Dhaka around 9:25am today. pic.twitter.com/2kqlvN5x6h

— Bangladesh Nationalist Party-BNP (@bdbnp78) October 29, 2023

Dhaka Metropolitan Police spokesperson Faruk Hossain said he was not aware of his arrest.

Alamgir, 75, the BNP’s secretary-general, has been leading the party since BNP chairwoman and two times former premier Khaleda Zia was arrested and jailed, and her son went into exile in Britain.

Zia has been living under effective house arrest since her release from a 17-year prison sentence in 2020.

The protests on Saturday by the BNP and the largest Islamist party, Jamaat-e-Islami, were the biggest so far this year, AFP journalists on site said and marked a new phase in their protests with a general election due before the end of January.

More than 100,000 supporters of two major Bangladesh opposition parties rallied to demand Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina step down to allow a free and fair vote under a neutral government.

The BNP’s #GrandRally venue has been packed since early morning, demanding elections under a non-partisan neutral government. নির্দলীয় নিরপেক্ষ সরকারের অধীনে নির্বাচনের দাবীতে বিএনপি’র মহাসমাবেশস্থল ভোর থেকেই লোকে লোকারণ্য।#StepDownHasina#OnePointDemand#TakeBackBangladeshpic.twitter.com/3HYYETmYUf

— Bangladesh Nationalist Party-BNP (@bdbnp78) October 28, 2023

Hasina — daughter of the country’s founding leader — has been in power for 15 years and has overseen rapid economic growth with Bangladesh overtaking neighbouring India in GDP per capita, but inflation has risen and her government is accused of corruption and human rights abuses.

Both BNP and Jamaat-e-Islami called for a nationwide strike on Sunday to protest the violence.

Security on Sunday was tight in the capital with thousands of police and paramilitary Border Guard Bangladesh patrolling the streets.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Activists of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party run from tear gas shell fired by police during a protest in Dhaka, Bangladesh, on October 28, 2023.
| Photo Credit: AP

The police fired tear gas and rubber bullets at huge crowds of Bangladesh Opposition supporters on Saturday to break up a giant protest against the Prime Minister, with one officer killed and scores of people injured in several hours of violent clashes in central Dhaka.

More than 1,00,000 supporters of two major Bangladesh Opposition parties rallied to demand Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina step down to allow a free and fair vote under a neutral government.

Live footage on the verified Facebook page of the main Opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) showed thousands of people running for safety as sound grenades went off one after another and plumes of black smoke rose from the roads.

AFP correspondents said the violence spread in roads and alleys in the centre of the capital as police fired tear gas and rubber shotgun rounds, while the protesters threw stones and bricks.

One officer was killed and more than 100 injured, said Dhaka Metropolitan Police spokesman Faruk Hossain, telling AFP: “The constable was hacked in the head by opposition activists.”

The protests by the BNP and the largest Islamist party, Jamaat-e-Islami, were the biggest so far this year, AFP journalists on site said, and marked a new phase in their protests with a general election due within three months.

Sheikh Hasina — daughter of the country’s founding leader — has been in power for 15 years and has overseen rapid economic growth with Bangladesh overtaking neighbouring India in GDP per capita, but inflation has risen and her government is accused of corruption and human rights abuses.

At least 20 people were rushed to Dhaka Medical College Hospital, the country’s largest, with wounds from rubber bullets, police inspector Bacchu Mia told AFP.

The clashes began in front of the city’s largest Catholic church when rowdy opposition supporters fought with sticks and allegedly torched a bus and a police post.

The BNP has called a nationwide strike on Sunday to protest the violence.

“Police and armed ruling party cadres attacked our peaceful rally,” party spokesman Zahir Uddin Swapan told AFP.

The resurgent Opposition has been mounting protests to press their demands for months, despite the BNP’s ailing leader Khaleda Zia, a two-time premier and old foe of Hasina’s, being effectively under house arrest after a conviction on corruption charges.

Hundreds of Opposition activists were detained in the days running up to the rally, officials confirmed, but her supporters poured into Dhaka on Saturday, crammed into buses despite checkpoints on roads into the capital, and even riding on top of packed trains.

“Vote thief, vote thief, Sheikh Hasina vote thief,” chanted the crowd at a demonstration in front of the BNP headquarters.

Student activist Sekandar Badsha, 24, from Chittagong, said: “We demand the immediate resignation of the Hasina government, release of our leader Khaleda Zia and establishing the people’s right to vote.”

At least 10,000 police had been deployed, officials said.

Dhaka Metropolitan Police spokesman Hossain said that at least 100,000 people had joined the BNP rally, while up to 25,000 were at the Jamaat protest near the city’s main commercial district — which had been banned by police.

BNP spokesman Swapan told AFP that there were more than one million people at its rally, which he described as its “final call” for Hasina to resign.

If she does not step down voluntarily — widely seen as inconceivable — the party has threatened to call more aggressive protests such as strikes and blockades.

Western governments have expressed concern over the political climate in Bangladesh, where Hasina’s ruling Awami League dominates the legislature and runs it virtually as a rubber stamp.

Her security forces are accused of detaining tens of thousands of opposition activists, killing hundreds in extrajudicial encounters and disappearing hundreds of leaders and supporters.