It has been greater than 10 days now for the reason that begin of the protests in opposition to a authorities job quota system. College students and youth throughout the nation have been demonstrating in opposition to what they see as an unfair coverage favouring a sure group – youngsters of “freedom fighters” within the Bangladesh battle of independence. However after the federal government unleashed unprecedented violence, the protests have gone past the demand for cancellation of the quota system.
An inventory of calls for by college students has been circulated in an underground press launch.
1) The prime minister should settle for duty for the mass killings of scholars and publicly apologise.
2) The house minister and the street, transport and bridges minister [the latter is also the secretary general of the Awami League], should resign from their [cabinet] positions and the get together.
3) Law enforcement officials current within the websites the place college students had been killed have to be sacked.
4) Vice Chancellors of Dhaka, Jahangirnagar and Rajshahi universities should resign.
5) The police and goons who attacked the scholars and people who instigated the assaults have to be arrested.
6) Households of the killed and injured have to be compensated.
7) Bangladesh Chhatra League [BCL, the pro-government student wing, which is, effectively, the government’s vigilante force] have to be banned from pupil politics and a pupil union established.
8) All academic establishments and halls of residences have to be reopened.
9) Ensures have to be offered that no tutorial or administrative harassment of protesters will happen.
That Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina publicly apologises for her disparaging feedback concerning the protesters could appear a minor subject, however will certainly be the sticking level.
This prime minister shouldn’t be the apologising sort, no matter what she does. Whatever the allegations that she has rigged elections, no matter the truth that corruption has been at an all-time excessive throughout her tenure, no matter the truth that greater than 100 college students and different protesters have been murdered by her goons and the safety forces, no matter the truth that she has deemed all those that oppose her views to be “razakars” (collaborators of the Pakistani occupation military in 1971).
There’s actually not anybody within the negotiating camp who would have the temerity to even recommend such a course for the prime minister. There’s a Bangla saying, “You solely have one head in your neck.”
The ministers do the heavy lifting. They management the muscle mass within the streets and “handle” issues when resistance brews. The ministers are high-ups within the get together, and other than the issue of discovering appropriate replacements, discarding them would ship out the fallacious message inside the get together.
Vice chancellors and proctors having to resign is a simple one. These are discardable minions. The perks are engaging and there are various to fill the ranks. The police being dumped shouldn’t be as straightforward, as they supply a number of the muscle, however “pleasant hearth” does happen.
Compensation shouldn’t be a problem. State coffers are there to be pillaged and public funds being distributed at get together behest is a typical sufficient apply.
The demand to ban BCL and related pupil organisations in Dhaka, Jahangirnagar and Rajshahi universities is a sticking level, as they’re those who maintain the scholar physique in test and are the get together cadre known as upon when there may be any signal of insurrection. It’s a vigilante group that may kill, kidnap or disappear at get together command. For a authorities that lacks legitimacy, these are the foot troopers who terrorise and are important components of the coercive equipment.
Academic establishments being reopened is a matter. College students have historically been the initiators of protests. With such simmering discontent, this is able to be harmful, notably if the native muscle energy was clipped. The return of unbiased pondering is one thing all tyrants concern. The cessation of harassment is straightforward to implement on paper. It’s tough to show and could be performed at many ranges. Eradicating the official costs will go away all unofficial modes intact.
Of all these calls for, the apology is the least innocuous, however maybe essentially the most important. It’s going to dent the aura of invincibility the tyrant exudes. She has by no means apologised for something.
Not for her father Sheikh Mujibur Rahman establishing the Rakkhi Bahini, the paramilitary power which rained terror on the nation. Not his establishing of Baksal, the one-party system the place all different events and all newspapers, besides the 4 authorized ones, had been banned. Not the quite a few extrajudicial killings and disappearances and the liturgy of corruption by individuals in her patronage throughout her personal tenure.
An apology to protesting college students, whereas easy, can be a chink in her armour she can be detest to disclose.
Sarcastically, her father and the Awami League led the resistance in opposition to the Pakistani military in the course of the genocide of 1971. The revolutionaries have now grow to be our new occupiers. They insist Bangladesh remains to be a “democracy”.
By now, the physique rely is inconceivable to confirm. I attempt to piece issues collectively from as many firsthand studies as I can. Most of the our bodies have a single, exactly focused bullet gap. Pellets are aimed on the eyes.
Worldwide information, out of contact because the web has been shut down and cellular connectivity severely throttled, say deaths are greater than 100. These monitoring really feel that these numbers are a major underestimate of the lifeless and lacking. Authorities information report even fewer.
Employees at metropolis hospitals are much less tight-lipped and can provide moderately correct figures, however not all our bodies go to hospital morgues. An older hospital in Dhaka did report greater than 200 our bodies being introduced in. The injured who die on the way in which to the hospital usually are not usually admitted. Households favor to take the physique dwelling slightly than hand them over to the police. Our bodies are additionally being disappeared.
Police and postmortem studies, when accessible, fail to say bullet wounds. The physique of my former pupil Priyo was among the many lacking ones, however we had been finally in a position to find him. A pal took him again to his dwelling in Rangpur to be buried. Fixed monitoring and checking by activists resulted within the bullet wound being talked about in his case, although a deliberate mistake in his identify within the hospital’s launch order that was overseen by a police officer tried to complicate issues. Happily, it was rectified within the nick of time.
Getting the information out has grow to be extraordinarily tough. This piece goes out via a sophisticated route. I’ve deleted all digital traces to guard the intermediaries.
Your complete web community has been introduced down; a junior info expertise minister has said that that is as a result of “unstable scenario”.
Helicopters fly low, beaming searchlights downwards. There have been studies of pictures fired at individuals. Tear fuel and stun grenade shells grow to be deadly when dropped from a top.
A pupil talks of a physique mendacity on the empty flyover being dragged off by the police. A pal talks of an unmarked automobile spraying bullets on the crowd because it speeds previous. She was fortunate. The shooter was firing from a window on the opposite facet. A mom grieves over her three-year-old senselessly killed.
A gory report of a human mind congealed on a tarmac is a primary for me. The curfew has resulted in garbage being piled up on the streets. The mind shall be there for individuals to see, maybe intentionally.
The raid at 2:20 earlier this morning within the flat throughout the road was additionally in commando trend. The video footage is blurry, however one can solely see segments of the massive contingent of the Fast Motion Battalion (RAB), closely armed police and others in plainclothes. They finally walked out with one particular person, maybe an opposition chief.
Armoured personnel carriers prowl the streets. Orders to shoot on sight haven’t quelled the anger and individuals are nonetheless coming onto the streets regardless of the curfew. There’s the opposite facet of the story. Experiences of policemen being lynched and places of work being set on hearth are a number of the violent responses to the government-led brutality.
Then there may be the impression of the protests on the typical particular person, as most working-class Bangladeshis stay day-to-day. Their each day earnings feed their households. As a main minister, who desperately clings on to a place she doesn’t legitimately have the fitting to, and a public, who’ve been tormented sufficient, to battle it out, they’re those who starve.
Personal TV channels vie with the state-owned BTV and churn out authorities propaganda. As I watch members of the general public complain on one, I’m unable to overlook all the typical individuals I spoke to – the rickshaw drivers, and even fruit sellers with perishable items – who expressed solidarity with the scholars. Their quick struggling, although painful, is one thing they’re prepared to simply accept.
She has to go, they are saying.
The views expressed on this article are the creator’s personal and don’t essentially replicate Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.