Bangladesh’s July demonstrations are much larger and more violent than in 2018 | Factsheet

Thousands of students took to the streets across Bangladesh in early July after a High Court verdict reintroduced controversial quotas in government jobs¹ on 5 June. The latest demonstrations come six years after the Awami League (AL) government’s 2018 decision to abolish the quotas, which also followed a nationwide student mobilization. Though the demonstrations began as a mainly peaceful movement at universities, they descended into violence in mid-July amid clashes between protest groups and police, with international media reporting over 200 fatalities and thousands of injuries. Police have arrested more than 2,000 people in connection with the violence² On 18 July, authorities blocked internet access and the next day implemented a nationwide curfew and deployed the army with shoot-on-sight powers.

While information is still limited due to continuing restrictions on internet access, here’s what we know so far:

• The recent protests have been much larger and more violent — in the face of lethal pushback from the authorities — than the anti-quota demonstrations in 2018. This suggests that the protesters are reflecting deeper political discontent. 

• The current demonstrations grew nationwide and turned violent in mid-July after Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina referred to protesters as Razakar sympathizers, using a highly charged term that refers to collaborators during the 1971 war of independence.³ Police launched a brutal crackdown, firing both rubber and live bullets at demonstrators. In some cases, the Bangladesh Chhatra League (BCL), the AL’s student wing, attacked demonstrators with weapons, further escalating violence.
• The rhetoric around the violence is highly partisan: The government accuses the opposition parties of co-opting the student-led movement. It mainly blames the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and its student wing, the Bangladesh Jatiotabadi Chatra Dal (JCD); many of those arrested are BNP leaders.⁴ ACLED data show that until 19 July, the BNP has explicitly participated in 3% of anti-quota demonstrations, and JCD in 1%.
  
• On the other side, the demonstrators blame police and the BCL for instigating the violence.³ The student and youth wings of political parties in Bangladesh wield enormous power. The BCL, in particular, has a history of disrupting anti-government student demonstrations, functioning as vigilante enforcers of the government’s writ.⁶ ACLED records show that the BCL was involved in 15% of all political violence events in Bangladesh in the last five years. 

As of writing, an uneasy relative calm prevails on the streets. While the Supreme Court struck down the majority of the quotas and adjusted others on 21 July after the peak of violence and property damage, student groups have issued fresh demands, calling for the curfew to be completely lifted and universities reopened, and for justice and accountability for violence against demonstrators. The AL government faces an economic downturn marked by rising inflation and unemployment, and charges of authoritarianism, as the government has violently repressed political opponents many times during the AL’s 15 years in power. Strong-arming protesters and deflecting popular anxieties as opposition propaganda may only go so far in quelling further unrest.

Visuals in this factsheet were produced by Ana Marco.