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Bangladesh’s top court has ruled to water down contentious government job quotas that sparked widespread anger and led to clashes with security forces that killed more than 100 people.
Local media and news agencies on Sunday reported that the Supreme Court had largely scrapped an earlier decision by a lower court to set aside about a third of public sector jobs for descendants of veterans of the 1971 independence war with Pakistan.
Protesters saw the quotas, which were scrapped in 2018 but reinstated last month, as disproportionately benefiting loyalists of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s Awami League.
But after weeks of protests led by university students, the Supreme Court ruled that 93 per cent of prized government jobs, seen as a form of secure employment, must be given on merit.
The demonstrations demanding an end to the quota system captured growing public anger towards rising economic distress and inequality in the country of 170mn. They quickly spiralled into one of the most serious challenges to Sheikh Hasina, who has overseen an increasingly authoritarian slide in Bangladesh over her two decades in power.
The Awami League considers itself the only heir of the independence movement. Sheikh Hasina’s father was Bangladesh’s first leader and was later killed in a coup.
More than 100 people have been killed so far in clashes between protesters, police and allies of Sheikh Hasina’s party, according to local media, with the army deployed to enforce a curfew over the weekend designed to quell the unrest.
News agencies also reported that security forces were given shoot-on-sight orders, raising fears that the toll from the violence could continue to increase. Authorities have suspended mobile and internet services across the country and the Financial Times has largely been unable to reach sources in Bangladesh.
Sheikh Hasina, who has defended the quota system as a just reward to veterans for their service after the country’s violent birth and struggle against Pakistan, reportedly cancelled overseas trips to Brazil and Spain.
On Saturday, the UK advised against all but essential travel to Bangladesh, citing “widespread violence” across the country.
The US state department also said it was allowing non-emergency staff and family members to voluntarily leave Bangladesh and urged Americans not to travel to Bangladesh due to the ongoing civil unrest in the capital, Dhaka.
India’s foreign ministry on Saturday said it was assisting its citizens fleeing across the country’s borders. Almost 1,000 Indian students have left Bangladesh by air or land, although more than 4,000 studying at the country’s universities remain.
Amnesty International has described the crackdown by Bangladeshi law enforcement agencies as “heavy-handed”, and called for the communication ban to be “urgently lifted” and for those arrested for peacefully protesting to be immediately released.
Bangladesh, the world’s second-largest garment exporter, has been hard hit by inflation, blackouts and mounting joblessness despite rapid economic growth. Sheikh Hasina’s re-election to a fifth term earlier this year was marred by a pre-poll crackdown on the opposition that provoked outrage from critics at home and overseas.
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