Bangladesh’s top court has scaled back a quota system for government job applicants, a partial victory for student protesters after days of nationwide unrest and deadly clashes between police and demonstrators that have killed scores of people.
Students, frustrated by shortages of good jobs, have been demanding an end to a quota that reserved 30% of government jobs for relatives of veterans who fought in Bangladesh’s war of independence in 1971.
The government previously halted it in 2018 following mass student protests, but in June, Bangladesh’s High Court reinstated the quotas and set off a new round of protests.
Ruling on an appeal on Sunday, the Supreme Court ordered the veterans’ quota be cut to 5%, with 93% of jobs to be allocated on merit. The remaining 2% will be set aside for members of ethnic minorities and transgender and disabled people.
The protests have posed the most serious challenge to Bangladesh’s government since Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina won a fourth consecutive term in January elections that were boycotted by the main opposition groups.
Universities have been closed, the internet has been shut off and the government has ordered people to stay at home amid the unrest.
With most communications offline, it is unclear as yet whether the verdict has satisfied protesting students. There was also no immediate reaction from the government.
The protests turned deadly on Tuesday, a day after students at Dhaka University began clashing with police. Violence continued to escalate as police fired tear gas and rubber bullets and hurled smoke grenades to scatter stone-throwing protesters.
Bangladeshi authorities have not shared any official numbers of those killed and injured, but local media reports said on Sunday that more than 100 people have been killed.
An Associated Press reporter on Friday saw security forces fire rubber bullets and tear gas at a crowd of more than 1,000 protesters who had gathered outside the head office of state-run Bangladesh Television, which was attacked and set on fire by protesters the previous day. The incident left streets littered with bullets and marked by smears of blood.
Ahead of the court’s ruling, soldiers patrolled cities across the country, with a nationwide curfew in force.
Home minister Asaduzzaman Khan said the curfew would be relaxed from 3pm to 5pm on Sunday for people to run essential errands.
Meanwhile, the government declared Sunday and Monday as public holidays, with only emergency services allowed to operate.
The main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) had backed the protests, vowing to organise its own demonstrations as many of its supporters have joined the student-led protests.
However, BNP said in a statement its followers were not responsible for the violence and denied the ruling party’s accusations of using the protests for political gains.
The Awami League and the BNP have often accused each other of fuelling political chaos and violence, most recently ahead of the country’s national election, which was marred by a crackdown on several opposition figures.
Ms Hasina’s government had accused the opposition party of attempting to disrupt the vote.
