Members of Leicester’s Bangladesh community gathered in the city’s Victoria Park over the weekend to show support for the country, which is currently in turmoil following student protests about quota reforms.
A peaceful protest took place in the park on Sunday (July 21) with participants deeply concerned about the violence which has been escalating in Bangladesh over the past week. Participants came armed with placards showing their support for students and calling for an end to police brutality.
Over 150 people have been killed and several thousand injured by police and thugs from the ruling Awami League. The majority of those killed are students from the ‘Students Against Discrimination’ movement, who have been staging protests geared towards scrapping Bangladesh’s retrogressive and divisive government job quota system. The quota system is used to benefit political supporters of Hasina’s Awami League.
Under this system, 30 percent of government jobs are allocated to the relatives of “freedom fighters” involved in the struggle to establish Bangladesh in 1971, 10 percent to women and those from underdeveloped parts of the country, 5 percent for ethnic minorities and 1 percent to physically challenged people. The remaining 44 percent is for those chosen under the current merit system.
“It’s a rule that some people support and a lot of people don’t,” said Sharmen Rahman, who led Sunday’s demonstration. Students believe that the rule is discriminatory and that jobs should be awarded on merit.
“The student body were practicing their democratic right to object to this rule. They believe that it’s not democratic and that it unfairly benefits those from middle to upper classes and they believe it’s not inclusive or meritocratic. They are objecting against this quota rule (as it’s called), as is their human right and they have absolutely every right to do so.
“Many of the people here may support the rule – they may not support the rule but they absolutely do not want to see our young people in Bangladesh be losing their freedoms and losing their lives to some extent by practicing their right to object to this rule, which is their democratic right.
“What’s really motivated people to come here today is because it is a dangerous sign of things to come,” she added.
“When a government is able to so brazenly clamp down on human rights for some people, particularly students who are the future of our nation – who are the future of any functioning democratic society and I think that symbol of things sort of descending into chaotic anti-democratic disorder is why people are here and the fact that young people are losing their lives over something that should be inherently protected.
“The students and young people in Bangladesh should be not be subjected to state sanctioned violence for merely enacting a democratic right.”
