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Despite Curfew, Deaths Mount in Bangladesh Student Protests

Commuters move along the road as Bangladesh soldiers stand guard following a curfew and the deployment of military forces in Dhaka on July 20, 2024. (Photo by Munir UZ ZAMAN / AFP)
Commuters move along the road as Bangladesh soldiers stand guard following a curfew and the deployment of military forces in Dhaka on July 20, 2024. (Photo by Munir UZ ZAMAN / AFP)
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Despite Curfew, Deaths Mount in Bangladesh Student Protests

Commuters move along the road as Bangladesh soldiers stand guard following a curfew and the deployment of military forces in Dhaka on July 20, 2024. (Photo by Munir UZ ZAMAN / AFP)
Commuters move along the road as Bangladesh soldiers stand guard following a curfew and the deployment of military forces in Dhaka on July 20, 2024. (Photo by Munir UZ ZAMAN / AFP)

Police imposed a strict curfew across Bangladesh and military forces patrolled parts of the capital Saturday to quell further violence after days of clashes over the allocation of government jobs left several people dead and hundreds injured.
The curfew follows the deadliest day yet in the weeks of protests despite a ban on public gatherings. Reports vary on the number of people killed Friday, with Somoy TV reporting 43. An Associated Press reporter saw 23 bodies at Dhaka Medical College and Hospital, but it was not immediately clear whether they all died on Friday.
Another 22 people died Thursday as protesting students attempted to impose a “complete shutdown” of the country. Several people were also killed Tuesday and Wednesday.
The protests, which began weeks ago but escalated sharply when violence erupted Tuesday, represent the biggest challenge to Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina since she won a fourth consecutive term in office after elections in January that were boycotted by the main opposition groups.
Police and protesters clashed in the streets and at university campuses in Dhaka and other cities across the south Asian country. Authorities moved to block online communications by banning mobile and internet services. Some television news channels also went off the air, and the websites of most Bangladesh newspapers were not loading or were being updated.
The curfew began at midnight and is set to relax from noon to 2 p.m. to allow people to buy essentials before being put back in place until 10 a.m. Sunday. A “shoot-at-sight” order was also in place, giving security forces the authority to fire on mobs in extreme cases, said lawmaker Obaidul Quader, the general secretary of the ruling Awami League party.

The protesters are demanding an end to a quota system that reserves up to 30% of government jobs for relatives of veterans who fought in Bangladesh’s war of independence in 1971 against Pakistan. They argue the system is discriminatory and benefits supporters of Hasina, whose Awami League party led the independence movement, and they want it replaced with a merit-based system.

Hasina has defended the quota system, saying that veterans deserve the highest respect for their contributions to the war, regardless of their political affiliation.

Representatives from the both sides met late Friday to find a resolution. At least three student leaders were part of the meeting in which they demanded a reform in the quota system, an opening of student dormitories across the country and the stepping down of university officials for failing to prevent violence on the campuses.
Law Minister Anisul Huq said the government was open to discussing the student leaders’ demands.

The protests are also backed by the main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party that has vowed to organize its own demonstrations with many of its supporters joining in the students’ protests.

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UN Approves More Transparent Procedures for People, Entities to Get Off Sanctions Lists

Members of the United Nations Security Council attend a meeting at UN headquarters in New York, US, October 5, 2022. REUTERS/Eduardo Munoz/File Photo
Members of the United Nations Security Council attend a meeting at UN headquarters in New York, US, October 5, 2022. REUTERS/Eduardo Munoz/File Photo
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UN Approves More Transparent Procedures for People, Entities to Get Off Sanctions Lists

Members of the United Nations Security Council attend a meeting at UN headquarters in New York, US, October 5, 2022. REUTERS/Eduardo Munoz/File Photo
Members of the United Nations Security Council attend a meeting at UN headquarters in New York, US, October 5, 2022. REUTERS/Eduardo Munoz/File Photo

The United Nations Security Council unanimously approved more transparent procedures Friday for the hundreds of individuals, companies and other entities who are subject to UN sanctions and want to get off the blacklists.
The resolution, co-sponsored by Malta and the United States, also authorizes the establishment of a new informal working group by the Security Council to examine ways to improve the effectiveness of UN sanctions.
Malta’s UN Ambassador Vanessa Frazier told the council before the vote that the resolution is a “clear signal of this council’s commitment towards due process.”
It authorizes a new “focal point” to directly engage with those seeking to get off sanctions lists and gather information from a variety of sources to share with the Security Council committee monitoring sanctions, which makes the decisions on delisting, she said. And it requires the reason for the committee’s decision to be given to the petitioner.
After the vote, US deputy ambassador Robert Wood called the council’s unanimous approval “a historic moment,” saying delisting procedures haven't changed for 18 years.
“The international community is demonstrating its commitment to values such as transparency and fairness in UN sanctions processes,” he said.
“Security Council sanctions are an important tool to deter an array of threats to peace and security, ranging from the proliferation of arms and weapons of mass destruction, to countering terrorism and preventing human rights abuses,” The Associated Press quoted Wood as saying.
But he stressed that to be effective, sanctions must be targeted and there must be “robust and fair procedures for delisting when warranted.”
The United States is against indefinite and punitive sanctions, and supports delisting and easing sanctions when warranted, Wood said. “But we are concerned by a growing tendency to prematurely lift sanctions, when the threats that prompted their imposition in the first place still persist.”
He didn’t give any examples but the US and its allies including South Korea and Japan have vehemently opposed Russian and Chinese proposals to ease sanctions on North Korea, which violates UN sanctions regularly with its ballistic missile tests and nuclear developments.
Russia’s deputy UN ambassador Dmitry Polyansky said Moscow proceeds from the premise that Security Council sanctions “are one of the most stringent and robust responses to threats to peace. Therefore, they should be applied in an exceedingly cautious way.”
“They need to be irreproachable, be substantiated, and they need to be nuanced,” he said. “The use of such sanctions as a punitive tool is unacceptable.”
Polyansky stressed that sanctions need to reflect the real situation in a country and “help facilitate a political process.”
But he said the Security Council doesn’t always follow this approach, and blamed the West for increasingly encouraging the use of sanctions in recent years.