After 15 years in energy, Bangladesh’s prime minister has immediately resigned and fled the nation. Sheikh Hasina’s departure got here after weeks of student-led protests had been met with lethal pressure, and has been greeted with jubilation on the streets of the capital, Dhaka.
What led to this?
College students protested for fairer entry to authorities jobs and had been met with violence, together with the killing of almost 300 individuals, sparking a broader motion for justice that has pressured Hasina to step down.
The scholars had initially demanded the elimination of a quota system that reserved 30% of presidency jobs for the households of people that fought for independence from Pakistan in 1971. However the authorities’s harsh response to the protests since mid-July meant they continued even after the supreme court docket largely met their calls for on quotas two weeks in the past.
The web was completely reduce off through the worst of the violence however photos that emerged confirmed police and members of the ruling Awami League social gathering’s pupil wing attacking protesters with dwell hearth and machetes and operating them over with autos. Individuals in Dhaka have described nonstop night-time raids, which have led to 11,000 individuals being arrested.
The raids continued in a single day earlier than a mass protest that had been known as for Monday – however then got here the shock announcement that Hasina had fled the nation by helicopter.
Who’s Sheikh Hasina?
The 76-year-old was the longest-serving feminine prime minister on this planet, having been in energy since 2009 and earlier than that from 1996 to 2001.
She led the social gathering based by her father, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, broadly thought-about Bangladesh’s founding father, carefully tying the social gathering’s legitimacy to his legacy. In 1975 Hasina survived the assassination of her father and their complete household in a coup by military officers solely as a result of she and her sister had been in Europe on the time. Shortly afterwards she turned the social gathering’s chief.
Her most up-to-date time period delivered strides ahead in improvement and financial progress, particularly within the garment sector, however many have felt the advantages are principally focused on Dhaka and a particularly wealthy elite.
Her rule has additionally been characterised by rising ranges of authoritarianism. A lot of the opposition, particularly the Bangladeshi Nationalist social gathering (BNP) and Jamaat-e-Islami, have been attacked and arrested. Extrajudicial killings have been widespread and journalists have mentioned they feared doing essentially the most fundamental reporting in case it was deemed to replicate badly on the federal government.
Elections beneath Hasina have had claims of election fraud and the newest, in January, was boycotted by the opposition.
How is Bangladesh’s independence nonetheless related to politics at present?
Bangladesh’s independence from Pakistan was received in 1971 after a bitter nine-month battle throughout which Bangladesh claims 3 million individuals had been killed and a whole bunch of hundreds of girls raped.
The nation’s violent start nonetheless performs a divisive position in Bangladesh’s politics, and Hasina and the Awami League have projected themselves because the protectors of the independence legacy.
There has lengthy been a bitter and sometimes violent divide between the Awami League and the primary opposition BNP, whose chief, Khaleda Zia, was married to Ziaur Rahman, the social gathering’s founder and the president after Sheikh Mujibur Rahman was assassinated in 1975. Ziaur Rahman’s supporters have argued that it was in reality him, then a military officer who revolted towards the Pakistani forces, who first declared independence and never Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.
Hasina has additionally typically used the collaboration of some teams with the Pakistani navy to denounce her opponents. Through the present protests she angered the scholars by saying these on the streets had been razakars – a time period referring to a Bengali militia that supported the Pakistani military.
What occurs subsequent?
The navy has introduced it has taken management and can be forming an interim authorities till elections could be held. Many are hoping the nation won’t fall into the identical patterns as earlier than. The Awami League and BNP have tussled for energy because the Nineteen Nineties, when democracy was restored after a interval of navy rule, however the position of scholars within the current protests has raised hopes of a substitute for break the cycle.
The navy chief, Gen Waker-Uz-Zaman, has known as on protesters to return to their houses and promised an investigation into the killings.
A helicopter reportedly took Hasina from Dhaka to India and she or he is anticipated to hunt asylum overseas.
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