Bangladeshi youth goes on the warpath

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After a massive police operation, the mass protests have subsided for young people in Bangladesh. However, the reasons for the anger of the young Generation will insist on the government of the Muslim-majority country.

With huge traffic jams and the ubiquitous honking of cars, buses and trucks are the norm is the car on Wednesday on the streets of Bangladesh’s capital, Dhaka, returned. There is hardly a reference to the mass protests that shook the whole country – triggered by the death of two young people who had captured a speeding Bus at the end of July.

A minimum of 7397 people died in accidents in the past year, in Bangladesh, in case of traffic. According to information from the private “Passengers Welfare Association” came in 2017, more than 20 people per day lost their lives, almost a quarter more than in 2016.

Thousands of students had protested after the fatal accident on the streets of the capital for more traffic safety and in the case of self-organized traffic control, a significant number of drivers without a driving licence handed over to the police. The demonstrations were violent, as the government was taken last Friday, with police forces and Pro-government activists with hardness against the protesters.

A growing climate of fear

More than 150 students were injured in the clashes with police and Pro-government activists. At least twenty journalists were beaten by members of the youth organization of the ruling Awami League. Numerous representatives of the media were arrested, one of them is the well-known photographer, Shahidul Alam.

Life on the streets has returned to normal therefore, the government believe critical activists, because the harsh reaction of the government has created a climate of fear among the protesters. Many activists and protest participants went to the diving station. Numerous demonstrators, who were active on social media, have deactivated their accounts.

“We are in a panic. We hear that some of the students who participated in the protests from Monday, have been arrested,” said a Student who wished to remain anonymous, the AFP news Agency.

Only Khan, a human rights activist from Dhaka, told DW that even on Tuesday some students had protested to obtain the release of comrades-in-arms who had been arrested in recent days in different Parts of the city.

“A whole series of arrests was made with violations of the ICT law establishes that the allegation, to provoke the protests on social media,” explains Khan. He refers to the controversial law on information and communication technology (ICT) in the country, the people criticize rights activists as an Instrument of Internet censorship. “The protesters wanted to put the Lack of the rule of law in the country. You wanted justice. But they were negotiated by the authorities, miss,” adds Khan.

An anti-government movement?

Of course, the students were triggered protests mainly by the lack of road safety in Bangladesh, my analysts. However, the demands for the death penalty for the perpetrators of deadly traffic accidents, or after the resignation of a Minister, to accuse, to do nothing against the widespread Driving without a license, also showed a General anger at the government. Michael Kugelman, a Bangladesh expert at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington, believes that the protests were an expression of long-standing, pent-up anger about the government and its policies as a whole.

“It is hard to imagine that the mere question of road safety, may be important to you also, so wide-ranging and long-lasting could be protests trigger,” says Kugelman, and adds: “The Problem of traffic safety, the drop that brought the barrel to Overflowing and the triggers for these large-scale demonstrations, for the much deeper and more complicated ills.”

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For the Polititologen Ali Riaz of Illinois State University the reasons for the protests are mainly in the “Absence of the rule of law and the Lack of accountability of the Ruling.”

“The discontent of the younger population about the direction of the country has become by this movement. Their Slogan ‘We want justice’ is, therefore, very instructive,” says Riaz.

While it is still unclear to be how it goes with the student protests, he believes that there have been now given a strong message to the decision-makers in the country.

“Whatever happens with the movement in the coming days, as it ends, the younger Generation has shown that they can challenge the prevailing culture of fear,” he said, and added: “your courage is left behind in the society and politics of Bangladesh, a permanent track.”

Against the wind for the ruling party

The current student protests, many young protesters for the second Time in the past few months on the road went, with no political Background. Many of the protesting students expressed at the 8. April, their anger about the quota system in the appointment of the government and called for a Reform of the system. In the filling of government jobs are reserved in Bangladesh, 56 percent of state Agencies for certain “eligible” groups of the population. 30 percent will go to the descendants of the “freedom fighters” of the independence war of 1971. In each case a further ten per cent are reserved for women, ten percent for individual districts according to their proportion of the population that’s five percent ethnic minority and one per cent for people with disabilities. Therefore, a lot of good students go out empty and have hardly any chances of getting the right Jobs, if you are none of these population groups. The answer of the government: repressive violence and arrests.

Analysts assume, therefore, that the brutality of the government against the young Generation could shortly before the parliamentary elections in December have a negative impact on the party in government. Nearly 23 million first-time voters from more than 100 million eligible voters can have a say in which party will govern the country in the next five years.

According to the political analysts, Golam Mortoza from Dhaka, could avenge the relentless approach of the ruling Awami League against the young protesters at the last two mass protests.

“If the young Generation gets the Chance to have your voice in the parliamentary elections, the government party enjoyable,” he told DW. “Even if it does not come through vote-rigging and other election fraud to political changes, is forgotten, this Generation of the repressive behaviour of the government party.”

Many experts fear that the elections will be neither free, nor fair. The Awami League seems to be determined to stay with violence instead of with public support in Power. Not without reason, the Bertelsmann Foundation has referred to the country recently as an autocracy.