Bangladesh is facing its worst unrest in years after at least 39 people were killed in protests demanding the government scrap its preferential hiring rules for sought-after civil service jobs.
AFP explains why students around the country are protesting and how weeks of demonstrations escalated into violence:
Job quota controversy
Bangladesh has more than 1.9 million civil servant posts, according to a 2022 report by the country’s public administration ministry.
More than half of the people hired to these jobs are not selected on merit but under affirmative action rules prioritising women, residents of less developed districts and other disadvantaged cohorts.
The most contentious aspect of this quota system is the reservation of 30 per cent of posts for children of freedom fighters who fought in the country’s 1971 liberation war against Pakistan.
The current rules were introduced in 1972 by independence leader Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, father of current Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.
Earlier protests by students in 2018 prompted Hasina’s administration to cut down the quota scheme.
But last month the High Court ruled that this change had been unlawful and ordered the government to reintroduce the freedom fighter category it had abolished.
High unemployment rate
Bangladesh was one of the world’s poorest countries when it gained independence in 1971 and suffered a devastating famine three years later.
Its economy has grown dramatically in the decades since, thanks largely to a thriving textile industry that supplies the world’s leading fast fashion brands and accounts for around $50 billion in yearly exports.
But the country still struggles to provide adequate employment opportunities for its burgeoning population of about 170 million people.
More than 40 percent of Bangladeshis aged between 15 and 24 were not working, studying or training, according to government statistics from 2022 — altogether 18 million people.
Economists say the jobs crisis is especially acute for millions of university graduates.
Civil service posts offer a chance at stable lifetime employment but students say the quota system is abused to stuff government posts with loyalists of Hasina’s ruling Awami League party.
They want the quota system dramatically scaled back to only apply to ethnic minorities and people with disabilities, with the remaining 94 percent of positions selected purely on merit.
How the protests started
Protests began on July 1 with university pupils blocking major roads and railway lines in big cities around the country to draw attention to their demands.
They have continued nearly every day since, with high school students also joining the rallies, despite Bangladesh’s top court suspending the quota system on July 10 for one month and urging demonstrators to return to class.
Monday saw the start of fierce clashes between anti-quota demonstrators and the student wing of the Awami League, with more than 400 people injured across two Dhaka universities.
Violence escalated on Thursday, the deadliest day of the protests so far, with 32 people killed and the toll expected to rise further after reports of clashes in nearly half of the country’s 64 districts.
Police said protesters carried out “destructive activities” on government offices, including the Dhaka headquarters of state broadcaster Bangladesh Television.
More than 700 people were wounded on Thursday, including 104 police officers and 30 journalists, according to local broadcaster Independent Television.
Helicopters rescued 60 police officers who were trapped on the roof of a campus building at Canadian University, the scene of some of Dhaka’s most brutal clashes.
Police fire was the cause of at least two-thirds of deaths reported so far, based on descriptions given to AFP by hospital staff.
Prime Minister Hasina responds
Prime Minister Hasina’s government on Tuesday ordered schools and universities across the country to close indefinitely, deploying the paramilitary Border Guard Bangladesh force to keep order in several cities.
Police raided the headquarters of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party that night, arresting seven members of its student wing and claiming they had found a cache of Molotov cocktails and other weapons.
In a national address on Wednesday, Hasina condemned the “murder” of protesters and vowed that those responsible would be punished regardless of their political affiliation.
Justice Minister Anisul Huq on Thursday called for “dialogue” with protesters.
Hasina’s government blocked internet access across the country the same day, with global web monitor NetBlocks saying Friday that a “nation-scale” internet shutdown remained in effect.
Protesters have vowed to continue demonstrations despite the crackdown, while rights groups and the United Nations have urged the government to protect students from violence.