Bangladesh calm after top court scraps job quotas
Al Jazeera
Students have suspended their protests that saw authorities react with a deadly crackdown.
Bangladesh has enjoyed a shaky calm amid a curfew as protesters set the government a 48-hour deadline to meet their new demands.
Widespread disruption of telecoms persisted on Monday, a day after the Supreme Court scrapped most of the controversial job quotas that led to the rallies.
Clashes between student protesters and security forces killed a reported 163 people across the South Asian nation after the High Court last month revived legislation – revoked by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s government in 2018 – reserving 56 percent of valued government jobs for groups such as families of freedom fighters, women, and people from underdeveloped areas.
On Sunday, however, the Supreme Court ordered that 93 percent of state jobs should be allocated on the basis of merit.
“We will continue our protests until the government publishes the verdict in the gazette,” said a Dhaka University student, speaking on condition of anonymity, in a reference to the government’s official record of decisions.
