The News
Student protests in Bangladesh appeared to have paused Monday after the country’s top court scrapped almost all government job quotas that had inspired weeks-long demonstrations that have left more than 160 people dead. The government has imposed a strict curfew and an internet blackout.
Protest leaders have made several demands of the government: To release protesters, lift the curfew, and reopen universities. They also called for the court’s ruling to be made formal law, for more government accountability, and for several ministers to resign. If the demands aren’t met in 48 hours, the protests will continue, Al Jazeera reported.
The unrest started after a lower court reinstated broad quotas on jobs for select classes, including relatives of veterans of the 1971 war of independence, earlier this year. Protestors said the quotas privileged supporters of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, whose party led the independence movement. Human rights advocates have criticized the ongoing crackdown as characteristic of Hasina’s government’s unwillingness to tolerate criticism.
Bangladeshi Nobel Peace Prize laureate Muhammad Yunus urged Monday to stop the violence in his first public comments since the beginning of the protests.
“I urgently call on world leaders and the United Nations to do everything within their powers to end the violence against those who are exercising their rights to protest,” he said in a statement. “There must be investigations into the killings that have taken place already.”