Bangladesh | Call for civil disobedience until PM resigns

(Dhaka) The leader of the student protests shaking Bangladesh called on Saturday for a vast movement of civil disobedience until the resignation of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, more than a month after the start of the protests which left more than 200 dead.

“Sheikh Hasina should not only resign, but also face trial for murder, looting and corruption,” Nahid Islam, leader of the Students Against Discrimination coalition, told thousands of people in central Dhaka.

The coalition, which first staged protests against civil service job quotas last month, earlier in the day rejected the prime minister’s offer to open talks and urged Bangladeshis to take part in civil disobedience starting Sunday.

“This includes non-payment of taxes and utility bills, strikes by civil servants and stopping remittances abroad through banks,” Asif Mahmud, a member of the student organisation, told AFP.

Garment factory workers, vital to the country’s economy, are also being asked to go on strike.

“Don’t stay at home. Join the nearest protest,” Asif Mahmud, a member of the student organization, wrote on Facebook.

In one of the many protests held in Dhaka on Saturday, Nijhum Yasmin, 20, called for the prime minister’s resignation.

She “must go because we don’t need this authoritarian government,” he said. “Did we liberate the country to see our brothers and sisters slaughtered by this regime?”

At least 206 people have been killed since the start of the protests in July, most of them victims of gunfire by the security forces, according to an AFP report based on police and hospital data.

War of liberation

The campaign of disobedience deliberately evokes that waged during Bangladesh’s liberation war against Pakistan in 1971.

M’s father^me Hasina, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the country’s independence leader, was behind the movement, which Bangladeshis remember as a proud battle against tyranny.

In this Muslim country of 170 million inhabitants with many unemployed graduates, students are demanding the abolition of a system of positive discrimination, accused of favouring the hiring of those close to power in the administration.

Partially abolished in 2018, this system was restored in June by court decision, sparking a powder keg, before a new reversal at the end of July by the Supreme Court, after a month of demonstrations and violence.

The social crisis, largely peaceful at first, turned into a political crisis from July 16, when the repression caused its first deaths. The demonstrators then demanded the resignation of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, 76, in power since 2009 and re-elected in January after a vote without real opposition.

These clashes are among the deadliest since Mr.^me Hasina. To restore order, her government has deployed the army, cut off internet access and imposed a curfew.

His government is accused by human rights groups of using state institutions to consolidate its grip on power and stamp out dissent, including through extrajudicial killings of opposition activists.

Authorities have accused opposition parties of hijacking the protests to provoke unrest.