Bangladesh Protesters Prepare to March to Dhaka, Defying Curfew
(Bloomberg) -- Bangladesh’s student-led protesters marched to the country’s capital Dhaka on Monday to pressure Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to resign, defying a curfew while the army chief prepares to address the nation.
The Anti-Discrimination Student Movement started the march in the afternoon, calling on other Bangladeshi citizens to join the protest from all over the country. The march was brought forward after clashes on Sunday between pro-government supporters and groups demanding the prime minister’s resignation left more than 100 people dead, some of them police officers.
Bangladesh Army Chief of Staff Waker-Uz-Zaman delayed his address to the nation to 3 p.m. local time. At Shahbag square, a popular demonstration site in Dhaka, people were gathering. Some were declaring it was “a victory for students” that the army chief will be speaking soon. Others were hugging the troops on the streets, television footage showed.
What started out in late June as peaceful protests seeking to abolish a government jobs quota has now turned into deadly unrest in recent weeks with demonstrators now seeking to oust Hasina who has vowed to go after those spreading anarchy. The clashes have continued to distract Hasina’s government as it seeks more funds from creditors and the International Monetary Fund to bolster dwindling foreign-exchange reserves.
Bangladesh has taken a $10 billion hit to the economy from the curfews and the internet blackouts. This time around, the nation is again shutting government and private offices, including banks, for three days starting on Monday and mobile internet services have been switched off.
Hasina’s office on Sunday urged students and parents to return home, saying “militant attacks” took place in parts of Bangladesh. “The authorities will take tough action against the attackers,” her office said in a message to the media.
While Hasina has overseen one of the fastest-growing economies in the world and helped lift millions out of poverty, those achievements are often overshadowed by what critics contend is her authoritarianism. They allege the 76-year-old leader has used state institutions to stamp out dissent and stifle the media, something she denies.
The student protests were initially a reaction to the High Court reinstating a controversial government jobs quota system, which gives preferential treatment to families of veterans who fought in Bangladesh’s war of independence from Pakistan in 1971. The Supreme Court later rolled back the system.
The jobs situation has turned more acute since the pandemic as youth unemployment has stayed persistently high and the private sector has struggled to expand. The unrest has made it difficult for the garment sector, a key earner of dollars, has struggled to open and this is likely to have an impact on reserves that have fallen to $21.8 billion in June.
(Updates throughout. An earlier version corrected the army chief’s name in the third paragraph.)
©2024 Bloomberg L.P.
