Thousands of students march through Bangladesh’s capital in a new protest targeting the government

Participants demand public apology from the Prime Minister for the recent crackdown and the resignation of six ministers

Aug. 2 (EUROPA PRESS) –

The Students Against Discrimination Movement, the umbrella organisation that has led recent protests against the now suspended quota system for civil servants in Bangladesh, has taken to the streets of the capital, Dhaka, again on Friday in a mobilisation aimed directly at the government, which they hold responsible for a crackdown that has left, they say, 266 dead (a figure the government maintains at 147, including police).

Thousands of students have blocked the Science Lab junction in a march where they have re-presented their so-called “nine-point programme” demanding that Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina publicly apologise for the crackdown, as well as the resignation of six government ministers, including Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan, Education Minister Mohibul Hasan Chowdhoury and Justice Minister Anisul Huq.

In fact, a day after being released from the custody of the Detective Division (DB) of the Dhaka Metropolitan Police, the six coordinators of the movement have today issued a joint statement in which they claim that they were held “forcibly” for seven days and that their call to end the protests was made under pressure.

The statement calls on students and citizens of the country to take to the streets and ignore government propaganda and oppression, and pledges to continue mobilizations in memory of the murdered students and citizens as well as the release of “innocent people detained.”

The statement, signed by Nahid Islam, Sarjis Alam, Hasnat Abdullah, Asif Mahmud, Nusrat Tabassum and Abu Baker Majumder, deplored the fact that “the coordinators were abducted, arrested, tortured and harassed since July 19 with the intention of dispersing the movement and its leadership.”

“Six coordinators were forcibly detained in DB custody for seven days in the name of ‘security’ when in reality the home minister and the DB chief only wanted to isolate us from the movement,” the statement said. The Bangladesh Detective Division, it should be recalled, has in the past been accused by several humanitarian organisations of violating the rights of detainees.

The police have deployed a large contingent around the intersection, the Dhaka Tribune reported, and there have been no reports of any disturbances. The students, for their part, have said that they have no intention of inflaming tensions and that their mobilisation is also a gesture in memory of those who died and were arrested during the protests against the quota system.

However, the telephone operator Graeemphone, in a statement reported by the Bangladeshi news portal New Age, said that the Government has again restricted, as of midday, access to the Facebook and Messenger platforms via mobile phones.

The order comes after the government imposed a complete telecommunications blackout at the height of protests against the quota system, which allocated up to 30 percent of places to fighters from Pakistan’s war of independence and which protesters considered an act of discrimination.

The Science Lab march was also joined by a protest by parents’ organisations in the elite neighbourhood of Banani, where they demanded justice for the killing of students at the hands of security forces and protection measures for their children, according to the Bangladeshi branch of the British broadcaster BBC.