Bangladesh cuts mobile internet as student protests over jobs intensify
Police fire tear gas to disperse students protesting against quotas in government jobs at Dhaka University. [Zabed Hasnain Chowdhury/NurPhoto via Getty Images]
Bangladesh has suspended some mobile internet services, with police firing tear gas at student protesters as violent clashes over civil service hiring quotas continue to rock the country.
The nationwide protests showed no signs of abating on Thursday, with at least 17 people reported dead and authorities blocking mobile services across most of the South Asian country
Zunaid Ahmed Palak, the junior information technology minister, said mobile internet had been “temporarily suspended” owing to “various rumours” and the “unstable situation created” on social media.
Services would be restored once the situation returned to normal, he added. Two days earlier, internet providers had cut off access to Facebook – the protesters’ key organising tool.
On Thursday morning, police fired tear gas canisters at students near BRAC University in the capital, Dhaka. Tear gas was also deployed against stone-throwing students who blocked a main highway in the southern port city of Chittagong.
“The situation is still volatile and restless,” said Al Jazeera’s Tanvir Chowdhury, reporting from Dhaka. “We know the protests are spreading in different parts of the city and … I’ve got reports of protests in other parts of the country.”
The unrest continued after students called for a nationwide shutdown on Wednesday evening, with the support of the opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), whose headquarters have been raided by police.
Shops and offices were open in Dhaka but there were fewer buses on the streets as the students’ shutdown call appeared to draw a limited response.
Bangladesh protests: Local media reports 17 people killed
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Video Duration 08 minutes 08 seconds
Bangladesh job quota protesters call for nationwide shutdown
Rigged system?
Students have been demonstrating for weeks against a quota system for government jobs that they say favours supporters of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s Awami League party, which led the country’s independence movement.
Under the system, a third of jobs are reserved for family members of veterans who fought for the country’s independence from Pakistan in 1971.
Angered by high youth unemployment, with nearly 32 million people – almost one-fifth of the total population of 170 million – out of work or education, students are pressing for a system based on merit.
The protests escalated after violence broke out on the campus of Dhaka University on Monday, with protesting students violently clashing with police and the student wing of Awami League.
Six people were killed amid protests on Tuesday, leading the government to shut all public and private universities indefinitely from Wednesday and send riot police and the Border Guard paramilitary force to campuses.
“Police used rubber bullets, shotguns, tear gas and were even followed sometimes by pro-government student-wing members who attacked the students,” he said.
Police confirmed on Thursday that an 18-year-old had been “hit by rubber bullets” and died before being admitted to hospital.
Two more students were killed on Thursday after clashes in Uttara, a middle-class neighbourhood in Dhaka’s north, according to Merina Parvin, a nurse at Uttara Adhunik Medical College hospital, where more than 100 students are being treated, the AFP news agency reported.
Dhaka Medical College Hospital was overwhelmed by an influx of injured students straining its resources and making it difficult to provide adequate care, emergency room officials told Al Jazeera.
Hundreds of protesters also overwhelmed riot police who had fired at them with rubber bullets and chased the retreating officers, who fled to BTV’s – the country’s state television station headquarters – in Dhaka.
The crowd then set ablaze the network’s reception building, and dozens of vehicles parked outside, a BTV official told AFP on condition of anonymity.
“Many people are trapped inside,” the broadcaster said on its Facebook page, adding that the “catastrophic fire” was spreading quickly.
The protests are the first significant challenge to Hasina’s government since she won a fourth straight term in January in an election boycotted by the opposition.
Hasina asked the students to be patient until the Supreme Court issues a verdict next month on the government’s appeal against the High Court ruling.
“I am requesting all to wait with patience until the verdict is delivered,” Hasina said in a televised address on Wednesday evening.
“That doesn’t seem to have convinced the students much,” said Al Jazeera’s Chowdhury. “It’s unprecedented using that kind of police force against students.”
On Thursday, Law Minister Anisul Huq said the government was willing to talk to the protesters.
“We are willing to sit [with them]. Whenever they want to sit in the discussion, it will happen,” he said.
The United States embassy in Dhaka said it would close on Thursday and advised its citizens to avoid demonstrations and large gatherings. The Indian embassy issued a similar advisory.
Rights groups, such as Amnesty International, as well as the United Nations and the US, have urged Bangladesh to protect peaceful protesters from violence.
