The leader of the main student movement in Bangladesh suspended for 48 hours on Monday the demonstrations against the recruitment quotas for public servants, which have provoked a wave of violence in the country in recent weeks.
“We are suspending the demonstrations for 48 hours,” Nahid Islam, leader of the main movement organizing the demonstrations, Students Against Discrimination, told AFP news agency.
The student leader called on the Pakistani government “to lift the curfew during this period, restore internet access and stop attacks on student protesters.”
The Students Against Discrimination movement had announced on Sunday that it would take part in the movement against recruitment quotas in the public sector.
More than 500 people, including opposition leaders, have been arrested in Dhaka following violent protests in recent days against civil service recruitment quotas.
“At least 532 people have been arrested following the violence,” Dhaka police spokesman Faruk Hossain told AFP news agency.
“Among them are leaders of the BNP,” added the Bangladesh National Party, an opposition political party.
Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus, 83, today called on the international community to put an end to violence in the country.
“I urgently call on international leaders and the United Nations to do everything in their power to end the violence suffered by those exercising their right to protest,” he told the economist in a statement.
Bangladesh’s Supreme Court on Sunday overturned a court ruling that allowed children of war veterans to hold government jobs, a privilege that sparked massive student protests and a wave of violence.
In a special hearing held due to street violence that has already caused more than a hundred deaths, the Supreme Court decided to annul the decision of the Dhaka High Court, issued last month, which allowed the government to grant a third of jobs to descendants of fighters from the Bangladesh liberation war (1971), several television channels in the country reported.
On Sunday, the Bangladesh government decided to extend the curfew, while communications in the country remain cut, in an attempt to contain the unrest resulting from student protests.
The almost daily demonstrations called at the beginning of July mainly by students are aimed at obtaining an end to quotas for admission to the public service, which favor the elites close to power.
The protests have escalated in recent days and represent the biggest challenge for Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina since she won a fourth consecutive term in January in an election boycotted by the main opposition groups.
Source: rr.sapo.pt
