Key Points
- Two weeks of student protests in Bangladesh have turned violent with hundreds of students attacked.
- Students are demanding the government scrap an affirmative action policy for prestigious civil service jobs.
- The protests began on 1 July, with university students blocking major roads and railway lines around the country.
A high-security alert has been issued in Bangladesh after student protests against a government job policy turned deadly.
At least 39 people have died and hundreds more have been injured amid the escalating violence.
The government ordered the indefinite closure of Bangladesh's schools and universities on Tuesday in an attempt to quell the unrest, and shut down the mobile internet network nationwide on Thursday to "ensure the security of citizens".
Here's why the students are protesting, and how weeks of demonstrations escalated into violence.
Why are the students protesting?
The students are demanding the government scrap its preferential hiring rules for prestigious civil service jobs.
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 for these jobs are not selected on merit but under affirmative action rules prioritising women, residents of less developed districts, and other disadvantaged cohorts.
Police used a sound grenade to disperse protesters at a university in Bangladesh's capital on Wednesday. Source: AAP / Monirul Alam
The current rules were introduced in 1972 by independence leader Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, father of .
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.
Why do students oppose the quota rules?
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 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 per cent 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 per cent of positions selected purely on merit.
How have the protests unfolded?
Protests began on 1 July with university students 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 10 July for one month and urging demonstrators to return to class.
Police attempted to disperse rallies the following day, firing rubber bullets and tear gas canisters, but failed to suppress protests in the capital Dhaka.
Dozens of people have died amid violent clashes between protesting students and police in Bangladesh. Source: AAP / Monirul Alam
Police crackdowns and clashes between rival student groups killed six people across Dhaka, Bangladesh's main port Chittagong and the northern city of Rangpur.
How has the government responded?
The prime minister has condemned the protests as pointless, saying this month that the students "are wasting their time" given that the rules have already been suspended.
But with no sign of the demonstrations abating, her government has escalated its efforts to quell the campaign.
On Tuesday, the education ministry ordered all schools, universities and Islamic seminaries nationwide to shut down until further notice, and deployed the paramilitary Border Guard Bangladesh force to keep order in several cities.
Police that night raided the headquarters of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, arresting seven members of its student wing and claiming they had found a cache of Molotov cocktails and other weapons.
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.
