Bangladesh Supreme Court scales back employment quotas that sparked riots

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Bangladesh’s Supreme Court has ruled to gut the government’s controversial jobs quota system, which sparked widespread public outrage and led to more than 100 deaths in clashes with security forces.

Local media and news agencies reported Sunday that the Supreme Court had all but overturned an earlier ruling by a lower court that had reserved about a third of public sector jobs for descendants of veterans of the 1971 war of independence with Pakistan.

Protesters say the quota system, which was scrapped in 2018 and reinstated last month, disproportionately favours supporters of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s Awami League party.

But after weeks of protests led by university students, the Supreme Court ruled that 93 percent of valuable government jobs considered stable employment must be awarded on merit.

The protests calling for the end of the quota system reflected growing public anger over growing economic hardship and inequality in Bangladesh, a country of 170 million people. They quickly escalated into one of the most serious challenges to President Sheikh Hasina, who has overseen a shift towards authoritarianism during her two decades in power.

The Awami League sees itself as the sole successor to the independence movement: Sheikh Hasina’s father was Bangladesh’s first leader, later killed in a coup.

More than 100 people have been killed so far in clashes between protesters, police and supporters of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s party, according to local media, and the army was deployed to enforce a weekend curfew to quell the unrest.

Media reports also said security forces issued shoot-to-kill orders at the scene, raising concerns the violence could lead to further casualties.Authorities have cut mobile phone and internet services across the country, and the Financial Times has had little access to its sources in Bangladesh.

Sheikh Hasina, who has defended the quota system as a just reward for veterans’ service after the country’s violent birth and struggle with Pakistan, has reportedly cancelled overseas trips to Brazil and Spain.

Britain on Saturday advised against all non-essential travel to Bangladesh, citing “widespread violence” across the country.

The State Department also said it would allow non-urgent personnel and their families to leave Bangladesh voluntarily due to ongoing civil unrest in the capital, Dhaka, and urged Americans to refrain from traveling to Bangladesh.

India’s Ministry of External Affairs said on Saturday it was assisting its citizens fleeing across the border. About 1,000 Indian students have left Bangladesh by air or land, but more than 4,000 studying at Indian universities remain in Bangladesh.

Amnesty International described the crackdown by Bangladeshi law enforcement as “heavy-handed” and called for the communications ban to be “urgently lifted” and for those arrested for peaceful protests to be immediately released.

Bangladesh, the world’s second-largest garment exporter, has been hit by inflation, power outages and rising unemployment despite rapid economic growth. Sheikh Hasina was re-elected for a fifth term earlier this year but a pre-vote crackdown on the opposition drew outrage from domestic and international critics.