Bangladesh’s Supreme Court cuts civil service employment quota after deadly riots leave scores dead

DHAKA, Bangladesh — Bangladesh’s top court on Sunday scaled back a controversial quota system for applicants for government jobs, a partial victory for protesting students after days of nationwide unrest and deadly clashes between police and demonstrators that left dozens of people dead.

Frustrated by the lack of good jobs, students are demanding the abolition of a quota that reserved 30 percent of government jobs for relatives of veterans who fought in Bangladesh’s 1971 war of independence. The government had already suspended the quota in 2018 after mass protests by students, but in June Bangladesh’s Supreme Court reinstated the quotas, triggering a new wave of protests.

On appeal, the Supreme Court ordered the veterans quota to be cut to 5% and 93% of positions to be merit-based, with the remaining 2% reserved for ethnic minorities, transgender people and people with disabilities.

The protests are the biggest challenge to Bangladesh’s government since Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina won a fourth consecutive election in January that was boycotted by main opposition groups. Universities have been closed, the internet has been shut down and the government has ordered people to stay at home.

Since most of the discussions took place offline, it was unclear whether the verdict satisfied the protesting students. There was no immediate reaction from the government either.

The protests turned deadly on Tuesday, a day after clashes with police broke out at Dhaka University. The violence escalated further as police used tear gas and rubber bullets and threw smoke grenades to disperse stone-throwing protesters.

Bangladeshi authorities have not released official figures on the dead and injured, but at least four local newspapers reported on Sunday that more than 100 people had been killed.

An Associated Press reporter on Friday saw security forces firing rubber bullets and tear gas at a crowd of more than 1,000 protesters gathered outside the headquarters of state-run Bangladesh Television, which was attacked and set on fire by demonstrators the previous day. The incident left the streets littered with bullet holes and streaked with blood.

Sporadic clashes were reported in some parts of the capital Dhaka on Saturday, but it was not immediately clear whether there were any fatalities.

Hasnat Abdullah, a leader of the anti-discrimination student movement leading the protests, said many people had been killed, “so the state should take responsibility.”

Ahead of the Supreme Court hearing, soldiers patrolled cities across the South Asian country. Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan said the curfew would be relaxed from 3pm to 5pm on Sunday to allow people to run essential errands.

The government has now declared Sunday and Monday as public holidays on which only emergency services are allowed to operate.

Protesters argue that the quota system is discriminatory and favors supporters of Hasina, whose Awami League party led the independence movement. It must be replaced with a merit-based system. Hasina defended the quota system, arguing that veterans deserve the highest respect for their services in the war against Pakistan, regardless of their political affiliation.

Representatives of both sides met late Friday to find a solution. Law Minister Anisul Huq said the government was open to discussions on their demands. In addition to quota reform, the demands also included the reopening of student hostels and the resignation of some university officials who had failed to protect campuses.

The main opposition party, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, supports the protests and said it would organize its own demonstrations as many of its supporters have joined the student-led protests. However, the BNP said in a statement that its supporters were not responsible for the violence and rejected the ruling party’s accusations of using the protests for political purposes.

The Awami League and the BNP have often accused each other of fomenting political chaos and violence, most recently ahead of the country’s national elections, which were marred by a crackdown on several opposition politicians. Hasina’s government had accused the opposition party of trying to rig the election.