Police fire live ammunition at protesters in Bangladesh

Photo: Munir Uz Zaman Agence France-Presse Shahida Begum, aunt of a person who died in the clash between police and anti-quota protesters, cries at Dhaka Medical College Hospital in Dhaka on Saturday, July 20.

Shafiqul Alam – Agence France-Presse to Dhaka

Posted at 2:24 p.m. Updated at 2:34 p.m.

• Asia

Student protests in Bangladesh have led to the worst violence the country has seen, now focused on challenging the autocratic rule of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, experts say.

The demonstrations, almost daily since the beginning of July, initially had as their sole demand a reform of the rules of recruitment in the civil service, which according to many voices favor pro-government candidates.< /p>

But with the tougher reaction of the police, who fired live ammunition on Saturday in the capital Dhaka, it is now the end of Ms. Hasina's mandate that tens of thousands of young Bangladeshis are demanding.

Photo: Munir Uz Zaman Agence France-Presse Bangladeshi students chant slogans during a protest against quotas in Dhaka on July 18.

The leader has twenty years in power, including fifteen years in a row after winning a new mandate in January.

“Down with the dictator,” demonstrators chanted this week during several parades in Dhaka, a sprawling megalopolis of 20 million inhabitants where angry crowds set fire to several government buildings on Thursday.

The movement has left at least 123 dead this week, according to a report on Saturday from police and hospital sources.

“The demonstrations are extremely “important”, estimates Pierre Prakash, director for Asia of the NGO International Crisis Group, “perhaps the most serious challenge launched to the Awami League regime (the party of Sheikh Hasina, editor's note) since its arrival in power “. He judges the “dangerous situation” for the country.

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Photo: Sufian Jewel Agence France-Presse A Bangladeshi police officer fires tear gas shells to disperse anti-quota protesters in Dhaka on July 19.

However, for the expert, the government itself caused the crisis. “Rather than trying to address the protesters' grievances, the government's actions have made the situation worse,” he told AFP.

The shooting police are responsible for more than half of the deaths, according to descriptions provided to AFP by hospital staff.

“Insult to their dignity”

The students began by demanding an end to a quota system which reserves more than half of the highly sought-after jobs in the sector public to specific groups, and accused of favoring those close to power.

In place since 1972, this system was toned down after student protests in 2018. But in June, the High Court reversed this decision, ordering the reintroduction of a quota reserving 30% of civil servant positions for the children of independence veterans. against Pakistan in 1971.

Protesters denounce the use of these quotas as a means to reward Awami League loyalists.

With Bangladesh unable to provide work for its 170 million people, this program is a source of resentment among young graduates facing an acute employment crisis.

Last week, Ms. Hasina, daughter of Bangladesh's first president, stoked tensions by comparing protesters to Bangladeshis who had collaborated with Pakistan, a reference that remains insulting after more than half a century after the conflict.

“Mocking them was an insult to their dignity,” Ali Riaz, professor of politics at the American University of Illinois, told AFP. This also means that the demonstrators “are of no importance to an unaccountable regime.”

Photo: Agence France-Presse A confrontation between anti-quota protesters and police in Dhaka on July 18.

“Pride and economic incompetence”

Since the start of her second term in 2009, Ms. Hasina, subsequently continuously re-elected, has been accused by rights groups of working to significantly restrict democracy in Bangladesh.

His government is thus suspected of misusing state institutions to establish its hold on power and eradicate dissent, in particular through the extrajudicial assassination of opposition activists.

In the absence of truly competitive elections for over 15 years, “disgruntled Bangladeshis have little choice other than street protests to make their voices heard”.< /p>

Ms Hasina has weathered several dramatic crises, including a brief army mutiny, the influx of more than 700,000 Rohingya refugees from neighboring Burma and a series of attacks Islamists.

But these violent protests are “unprecedented,” said former Bangladesh correspondent Tom Felix Joehnk, who worked for The Economist.

“Suppressing political competition in Bangladesh has always been a bad idea,” he told AFP. “Basically, it is a political crisis caused by excessive pride and economic incompetence,” he believes.

And add: “Some 18 million young Bangladeshis are unemployed. With democracy on hold for over a decade, they are starting to vote with their feet.”