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Saturday, July 20, 2024 1:45:09 AM
Protesters attack Bangladeshi state broadcaster after PM’s call for calm
"Bangladesh: Officials Linked to Hundreds of ‘Disappearances’
"Aung San Suu Kyi spent her life playing cat and mouse with Myanmar's generals. Did she lose the final round?"
[...]An August 2021 report by Human Rights Watch .. https://www.hrw.org/report/2021/08/16/where-no-sun-can-enter/decade-enforced-disappearances-bangladesh .. documented widespread enforced disappearances by Bangladesh security forces under Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s Awami League-led government from 2009 to 2020. Foreign Minister AK Abdul Momen rejected the findings, telling the media .. https://www.benarnews.org/english/news/bengali/disappearances-report-08162021175747.html .. that the allegations were “fabricated.” The Bangladesh government has long denied compelling evidence of government involvement in disappearances, which is particularly damaging .. https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-bangladesh-politics-report-idUKKCN1UO0N0 .. and painful .. https://thediplomat.com/2018/05/bangladesh-disappeared-reappear-all-the-time/ .. to victims’ families. "
Incensed crowd facing riot police set BTV building on fire as students demand end to discriminatory job quotas
Guardian staff and agencies
Fri 19 Jul 2024 19.39 AEST
First published on Fri 19 Jul 2024 02.05 AEST
Bangladeshi students have set fire to the state broadcaster’s building a day after the prime minister, Sheikh Hasina .. https://www.theguardian.com/world/sheikh-hasina , appeared on the network seeking to calm escalating clashes that had killed at least 39 people.
Hundreds of protesters demanding reform of civil service hiring rules .. https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/jul/16/two-dead-and-thousands-injured-as-bangladesh-police-crack-down-on-anti-quota-protests .. clashed with riot police who had shot at them with rubber bullets on Thursday, chasing the retreating officers to BTV’s headquarters in the capital, Dhaka.
The incensed crowd then set ablaze the network’s reception building and dozens of vehicles parked outside, a BTV official told AFP.
The broadcaster said “many people” were trapped inside as the fire spread. Another official from the station later told AFP they had safely evacuated the building. Bangladesh .. https://www.theguardian.com/world/bangladesh .. Television remains offline, according to the Reuters news agency.
A police statement issued after a near-total shutdown of the nation’s internet said protesters had torched, vandalised and carried out “destructive activities” on numerous police and government offices.
“About 100 policemen were injured in the clashes yesterday,” Faruk Hossain, a spokesperson for the capital’s police force, told AFP. “Around 50 police booths were burnt”.
The government of Hasina, 76, has ordered schools and universities to close indefinitely as police step up efforts to bring a deteriorating law and order situation under control.
The premier appeared on the broadcaster’s station on Wednesday night to condemn the “murder” of protesters and vow that those found responsible would be punished regardless of their political affiliation. But violence worsened on the streets despite her appeal for calm as police again attempted to break up demonstrations with rubber bullets and teargas volleys.
[Insert: Sheik Hasina is prime minister. I don't think there is a premier ..
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sheikh_Hasina .]
At least 32 people were killed on Thursday in addition to seven killed earlier in the week, according to a tally of casualty figures from hospitals compiled by AFP. Hundreds more people were wounded. Police weaponry was the cause of at least two-thirds of those deaths, based on descriptions given to AFP.
“We’ve got seven dead here,” said an official at Uttara Crescent hospital in Dhaka, who asked not to be named for fear of reprisal. “The first two were students with rubber bullet injuries. The other five had gunshot injuries.”
Nearly 1,000 others had been treated at the hospital for injuries sustained during clashes with police, the official said, adding that many of those people had rubber bullet wounds.
Didar Malekin, of the online news outlet Dhaka Times, said one of his reporters, Mehedi Hasan, had been killed while covering clashes in Dhaka.
There was violence in several cities across Bangladesh throughout the day as riot police marched on protesters, who had begun another round of human blockades on roads and highways.
Helicopters rescued 60 police officers trapped on the roof of a campus building at Canadian University, the scene of some of Dhaka’s fiercest clashes on Thursday, the elite Rapid Action Battalion police force said.
Two die and thousands hurt in crackdown on Bangladesh student protests
Read more .. https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/jul/16/two-dead-and-thousands-injured-as-bangladesh-police-crack-down-on-anti-quota-protests
Almost every day this month, people on marches have demanded an end to the quota system that reserves more than half of civil service posts for specific groups, including children of veterans from the 1971 liberation war against Pakistan.
Critics say the scheme benefits children of pro-government groups that back Hasina, who has ruled the country since 2009. She won her fourth consecutive election in January after a vote without genuine opposition. Her administration is accused by rights groups of capturing state institutions and stamping out dissent, including by the extrajudicial killing of opposition activists.
Mubashar Hasan, a Bangladesh expert at the University of Oslo, said the protests had grown into a wider expression of discontent with Hasina’s autocratic rule. “They are protesting against the repressive nature of the state. Protesters are questioning Hasina’s leadership, accusing her of clinging on to power by force. The students are in fact calling her a dictator,” Hasan said.
Bangladeshis reported widespread mobile internet outages around the country on Thursday, two days after internet providers cut off access to Facebook, the protest campaign’s key organising platform.
Reuters reported that telecommunications were disrupted on Friday as well, with Telephone calls from overseas mostly not getting connected and calls through the internet unable to be completed. Websites of several Bangladesh-based newspapers were also not updating on Friday morning and their social media handles were not active.
The telecommunications minister, Zunaid Ahmed Palak, said the government had ordered the network to be cut off. He earlier said social media had been “weaponised as a tool to spread rumours, lies and disinformation”, forcing the government to restrict access.
Along with police crackdowns, demonstrators and students allied to the premier’s ruling Awami League party have also battled each other on the streets with bricks and bamboo rods.
With Agence France-Presse in Dhaka and Reuters
https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/jul/18/protesters-attack-bangladeshi-state-broadcaster-after-pms-call-for-calm
"Bangladesh: Officials Linked to Hundreds of ‘Disappearances’
"Aung San Suu Kyi spent her life playing cat and mouse with Myanmar's generals. Did she lose the final round?"
[...]An August 2021 report by Human Rights Watch .. https://www.hrw.org/report/2021/08/16/where-no-sun-can-enter/decade-enforced-disappearances-bangladesh .. documented widespread enforced disappearances by Bangladesh security forces under Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s Awami League-led government from 2009 to 2020. Foreign Minister AK Abdul Momen rejected the findings, telling the media .. https://www.benarnews.org/english/news/bengali/disappearances-report-08162021175747.html .. that the allegations were “fabricated.” The Bangladesh government has long denied compelling evidence of government involvement in disappearances, which is particularly damaging .. https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-bangladesh-politics-report-idUKKCN1UO0N0 .. and painful .. https://thediplomat.com/2018/05/bangladesh-disappeared-reappear-all-the-time/ .. to victims’ families. "
Incensed crowd facing riot police set BTV building on fire as students demand end to discriminatory job quotas
Guardian staff and agencies
Fri 19 Jul 2024 19.39 AEST
First published on Fri 19 Jul 2024 02.05 AEST
Bangladeshi students have set fire to the state broadcaster’s building a day after the prime minister, Sheikh Hasina .. https://www.theguardian.com/world/sheikh-hasina , appeared on the network seeking to calm escalating clashes that had killed at least 39 people.
Hundreds of protesters demanding reform of civil service hiring rules .. https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/jul/16/two-dead-and-thousands-injured-as-bangladesh-police-crack-down-on-anti-quota-protests .. clashed with riot police who had shot at them with rubber bullets on Thursday, chasing the retreating officers to BTV’s headquarters in the capital, Dhaka.
The incensed crowd then set ablaze the network’s reception building and dozens of vehicles parked outside, a BTV official told AFP.
The broadcaster said “many people” were trapped inside as the fire spread. Another official from the station later told AFP they had safely evacuated the building. Bangladesh .. https://www.theguardian.com/world/bangladesh .. Television remains offline, according to the Reuters news agency.
A police statement issued after a near-total shutdown of the nation’s internet said protesters had torched, vandalised and carried out “destructive activities” on numerous police and government offices.
“About 100 policemen were injured in the clashes yesterday,” Faruk Hossain, a spokesperson for the capital’s police force, told AFP. “Around 50 police booths were burnt”.
The government of Hasina, 76, has ordered schools and universities to close indefinitely as police step up efforts to bring a deteriorating law and order situation under control.
The premier appeared on the broadcaster’s station on Wednesday night to condemn the “murder” of protesters and vow that those found responsible would be punished regardless of their political affiliation. But violence worsened on the streets despite her appeal for calm as police again attempted to break up demonstrations with rubber bullets and teargas volleys.
[Insert: Sheik Hasina is prime minister. I don't think there is a premier ..
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sheikh_Hasina .]
At least 32 people were killed on Thursday in addition to seven killed earlier in the week, according to a tally of casualty figures from hospitals compiled by AFP. Hundreds more people were wounded. Police weaponry was the cause of at least two-thirds of those deaths, based on descriptions given to AFP.
“We’ve got seven dead here,” said an official at Uttara Crescent hospital in Dhaka, who asked not to be named for fear of reprisal. “The first two were students with rubber bullet injuries. The other five had gunshot injuries.”
Nearly 1,000 others had been treated at the hospital for injuries sustained during clashes with police, the official said, adding that many of those people had rubber bullet wounds.
Didar Malekin, of the online news outlet Dhaka Times, said one of his reporters, Mehedi Hasan, had been killed while covering clashes in Dhaka.
There was violence in several cities across Bangladesh throughout the day as riot police marched on protesters, who had begun another round of human blockades on roads and highways.
Helicopters rescued 60 police officers trapped on the roof of a campus building at Canadian University, the scene of some of Dhaka’s fiercest clashes on Thursday, the elite Rapid Action Battalion police force said.
Two die and thousands hurt in crackdown on Bangladesh student protests
Read more .. https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/jul/16/two-dead-and-thousands-injured-as-bangladesh-police-crack-down-on-anti-quota-protests
Almost every day this month, people on marches have demanded an end to the quota system that reserves more than half of civil service posts for specific groups, including children of veterans from the 1971 liberation war against Pakistan.
Critics say the scheme benefits children of pro-government groups that back Hasina, who has ruled the country since 2009. She won her fourth consecutive election in January after a vote without genuine opposition. Her administration is accused by rights groups of capturing state institutions and stamping out dissent, including by the extrajudicial killing of opposition activists.
Mubashar Hasan, a Bangladesh expert at the University of Oslo, said the protests had grown into a wider expression of discontent with Hasina’s autocratic rule. “They are protesting against the repressive nature of the state. Protesters are questioning Hasina’s leadership, accusing her of clinging on to power by force. The students are in fact calling her a dictator,” Hasan said.
Bangladeshis reported widespread mobile internet outages around the country on Thursday, two days after internet providers cut off access to Facebook, the protest campaign’s key organising platform.
Reuters reported that telecommunications were disrupted on Friday as well, with Telephone calls from overseas mostly not getting connected and calls through the internet unable to be completed. Websites of several Bangladesh-based newspapers were also not updating on Friday morning and their social media handles were not active.
The telecommunications minister, Zunaid Ahmed Palak, said the government had ordered the network to be cut off. He earlier said social media had been “weaponised as a tool to spread rumours, lies and disinformation”, forcing the government to restrict access.
Along with police crackdowns, demonstrators and students allied to the premier’s ruling Awami League party have also battled each other on the streets with bricks and bamboo rods.
With Agence France-Presse in Dhaka and Reuters
https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/jul/18/protesters-attack-bangladeshi-state-broadcaster-after-pms-call-for-calm
It was Plato who said, “He, O men, is the wisest, who like Socrates, knows that his wisdom is in truth worth nothing”
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