At least 32 children were killed last month, according to the United Nations. (ARCHIVE PHOTO)
Dhaka:
Bangladeshi student leaders said on Saturday they would continue a planned nationwide campaign of civil disobedience until Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina steps down following a deadly police crackdown on protesters last month.
Protests against civil service quotas led to days of chaos in July, leaving more than 200 people dead in one of the worst unrest in Hasina's 15-year tenure.
The deployment of troops briefly restored order, but this week people took to the streets en masse in preparation for a general movement of non-cooperation that the government hopes to paralyze on Sunday.
Students Against Discrimination, the group responsible for organizing the initial protests, earlier in the day rejected an offer for talks with Hasina but said their campaign would continue until the prime minister and her government resigned.
“She must resign and she must be brought to justice,” Nahid Islam, the group's leader, told a crowd of thousands at a monument to national heroes in the capital Dhaka, amid loud cheers.
Students Against Discrimination have called on their compatriots to stop paying taxes and energy bills from Sunday in order to put pressure on the government.
They have also called on government employees and workers in the country's economically vital garment factories to strike.
“She must go because we don't need this authoritarian government,” 20-year-old Nijhum Yasmin told AFP during one of the many protests that took place around Dhaka on Saturday.
“Did we liberate the country to see our brothers and sisters shot dead by this regime?”
The threatening campaign of non-cooperation deliberately references a historic campaign of civil disobedience during Bangladesh's war of independence from Pakistan in 1971.
This earlier movement was led by Hasina's father Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the country's independence leader, and is remembered by Bengalis as part of a proud struggle against tyranny.
“Now the tables have turned,” Ali Riaz, a politics professor at Illinois State University, told AFP.
“The regime's foundation has been shaken, the aura of invincibility has disappeared,” he added. “The question is whether Hasina is ready to seek a way out or fight to the end.”
32 children killed
Hasina, 76, has ruled Bangladesh since 2009 and won her fourth consecutive election in January, after a vote with no direct opposition.
Human rights groups accuse her government of abusing state institutions to consolidate its power and suppress dissent, including through extrajudicial killings of opposition activists.
Protests began in early July against the reintroduction of a quota system, now overturned by the Bangladesh Supreme Court, which reserved more than half of all government jobs for certain groups.
According to government figures, around 18 million young Bengalis are unemployed, a big disappointment for graduates who are facing an acute employment crisis.
The protests were largely peaceful until police and pro-government student groups attacked demonstrators.
Hasina's government eventually imposed a nationwide curfew, deployed troops and shut down the country's mobile internet network for 11 days to restore order.
But the crackdown sparked a flood of criticism from abroad and failed to quell widespread outrage at home.
After Friday prayers, the Muslim-majority country once again took to the streets en masse, following a call from student leaders to pressure the government to make more concessions.
The European Union's foreign policy chief Josep Borrell this week called for an international investigation into the “excessive and lethal force against protesters”.
Interior Minister Asaduzzaman Khan told reporters over the weekend that security forces were acting with restraint but were “forced to open fire” to defend government buildings.
At least 32 children were killed last month, according to the United Nations.
(This story has not been edited by Our staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
