Dhaka, Paris, 18 July 2024. On 5 June 2024, the High Court Division of the Supreme Court of Bangladesh ruled to restore a quota system for government jobs, under which 56% of these jobs would be reserved to various categories of people, including 30% to children and grandchildren of freedom fighters from the 1971 Liberation War. On 1st July 2024, students from across the country began a protest movement demanding reform of the quota system. The demonstrations and related crackdown are ongoing across Bangladesh at the time of publication of this statement.
In Dhaka, the protests have been violently repressed by law enforcement authorities through the use of unnecessary and disproportionate force. Police used firearms, tear gas, stun grenades, rubber bullets, and shotgun pellets to disperse protesters. In Rangpur District, video footage emerged of a group of police officers shooting and killing an unarmed student protester. Authorities have also arrested hundreds of protest participants and organizers, including Akhtar Hossain, the Convenor of Gonotantrik Chhatra Shakti (Democratic Student Power) in Dhaka. The government crackdown on student protests has been actively aided by the Bangladesh Chhatra League (BCL), a students’ political organization affiliated with the ruling party, the Awami League. BCL elements have engaged in brutal attacks against the protesting students, including female students, and have shot indiscriminately with firearms. Starting on 16 July, the government blocked mobile internet services without warning.
The students’ protests turned deadly after police and BCL members attacked the demonstrators on 15 July, resulting in violent clashes throughout the country, particularly on and around the campuses of public and private universities. As the unrest spread, the paramilitary Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB) force was deployed in five major cities including Dhaka and Chittagong.
On the evening of 15 July, BCL members attacked injured students who were receiving treatment in the emergency department of the Dhaka Medical College Hospital. Many female students were assaulted during the attack. Authorities have not taken any measures to protect the students, and law enforcement personnel have stood by while some of these attacks took place.
FIDH and Odhikar recall that BCL members and law enforcement agencies similarly attacked and harassed students who were protesting for the government jobs’ quota reform in 2018. To date, no one has been held accountable for those violent attacks.
FIDH and Odhikar urge the government to investigate the crackdown by law enforcement agencies, and to hold officers who used unnecessary and/or disproportionate force accountable. Odhikar and FIDH also call for an immediate and independent investigation into the attacks on protesters by BCL members.