Even her detention by police had not dampened her determination: Nusrat Tabassum, a student in Bangladesh, was one of many young women who led the movement that led to the fall of autocratic Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.
The Asian country has already seen several waves of protests against the leader, who has been in power for fifteen years, but this is the first time that young women have participated in large numbers, playing a crucial role.
As the army began firing on the protesters, several of them rushed to the front of the march, banking on the soldiers being reluctant to open fire on women. The soldiers did indeed lower their weapons, marking a turning point in the wave that has driven Mme Hasina of power.
“There was no turning back,” Nusrat Tabassum, who became a heroine at her university in Dhaka after helping to lead the movement, which began as a protest against quotas for public sector jobs, told AFP.
“Anger was growing, as were demands for equality,” explains the 23-year-old, greeted and cheered in the aisles of her university campus, a stronghold of the country’s elite.
Two weeks ago, she was arrested along with five other student leaders and detained for several days. At gunpoint, security forces forced them to sign a statement calling for an end to the movement.
“I thought about suicide several times,” M. recalls.me Tabassum: “I couldn’t bear the thought that people in this country would think that we had deceived them, that we had sold out.”
But the Bangladeshis had seen through the government’s trickery.
“When we saw that people were not mistaken about us and that they continued to protest in the streets, it gave me the strength to continue,” she recalls.
“Bloodbath”
The protests began last month after a court ruling allowing the return of public employment quotas, a much-criticized measure that allows the prime minister to give government positions to people in her pay.
The scheme planned to reserve 10% of jobs for women but, according to Nusrat Tabassum, its instrumentalisation by the government meant that “women would have suffered more than benefited”.
Shortly after the start of the protests, the Prime Minister defended these quotas by assuring that women could not currently access high positions on their merits and skills alone.
The irony of such a statement, coming from one of the longest-serving women in power in the world, was not lost on her opponents.
To maintain her hold on to power, Sheikh Hasina had also threatened further Islamist attacks in the Muslim-majority country, but this strategy, which has been successful in the past, was this time defused by images of women leading the protests.
“Women are now more concerned about their rights and that is why they spontaneously joined the protests,” said Nahida Bushra, a humanities student at Dhaka University who played a key role in convincing other women to join the movement.
She has successfully defied government efforts to stop her and ignored online campaigns aimed at demonizing students.
“There is an avalanche of rumours and misinformation on social media but we have maintained our unity,” she told AFP.
With telecom companies forced to block access to Facebook and other networks used by protesters, Bushra and her comrades used virtual networks (VPNs) to circumvent the bans.
The government then imposed a complete shutdown of the mobile internet and protesters resorted to text messages.
In a desperate attempt to cling to power, M’s governmentme Hasina then ordered the soldiers to suppress the protests bloodily. But they refused.
“It would have been a complete bloodbath and the military did not want to commit a massacre,” said Thomas Kean, an expert at the International Crisis Group. “Siding with Hasina at this pivotal moment would have tarnished their image considerably.”
As the most tumultuous period in the country’s history draws to a close, Nusrat Tabassum assures us that the work has only just begun.
“My country has failed to implement real democracy. We still have the responsibility to build the country,” she said.
“A revolution led by students”
Bangladesh is experiencing a “student-led revolution,” the head of the new caretaker government, Muhammad Yunus, has said.
“This is a revolution, a student-led revolution,” the Nobel Peace Prize laureate told reporters Sunday night, adding that the resignations of Sheikh Hasina’s allies from the Supreme Court and other institutions were legal, “because legally […] all steps have been followed.”
“There is no doubt about it [car] “The whole government’s business has collapsed,” he added.
Economist Muhammad Yunus, 84, returned from Europe on Thursday at the request of student protest leaders to succeed Sheikh Hasina, 76, who fled by helicopter to India after 15 years in power and before protesters stormed her official residence in Dhaka.
“I said [aux chefs du mouvement étudiant, ndlr] “I respect you, I admire you. What you have done is absolutely unprecedented,” Yunus said during a briefing at the government headquarters. His office agreed on Monday to make the initially unofficial statements public.
“Since you ordered me to do this, then I follow your order,” he said, saying he was confident that student leaders “will find a legal way to justify all this, because legally… all the steps have been followed.”