Bangladesh scales back job quota system after deadly protests

The majority of the government employment quotas that had caused widespread unrest and resulted in fatal clashes between police and student protesters that claimed over 100 lives in the previous week were abolished by Bangladesh’s Supreme Court on Sunday.

Since the beginning of July, college students have been staging protests on campus to call for the revision of the quota system, which allocated thirty percent of government positions to the relatives of veterans who participated in Bangladesh’s 1971 liberation struggle.

2018 saw student protests that led to the government eliminating the quotas. However, last month, Bangladesh’s High Court restored it, sparking fresh protests that were met with a severe crackdown that included a curfew and a communications blackout that cut off the 170 million people living in the nation from the outside world.

Ruling on an appeal, Attorney General AM Amin Uddin said the Supreme Court had ordered the quota reserved for veterans to be cut to 5 percent and for 93 percent of jobs to be allocated on merit. The remaining 2 percent will be reserved for members of ethnic minorities and people with disabilities.

“In the future, the government may change the ratio if needed,” Uddin told to media.

“Now, I will send a copy of the verdict to the law minister for the next steps. (I) hope a gazette will be published in this regard within the next couple of days.”

The verdict came after demonstrations spiraled into deadly clashes, prompting authorities to impose a curfew ahead of the Supreme Court hearing, which Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan told Agence France-Presse news agency will continue “until the situation improves.”

The military was on patrol in the streets of Dhaka, along with riot police and thousands of Border Guard personnel as all gatherings were banned amid an increasing number of casualties.

At least 148 people have been killed in the past week and thousands injured, according to a count based on reports in the local media.

It was not immediately clear how protesters would react to the decision by the Supreme Court.

Students had taken to the streets as the government quotas, which reserve hundreds of thousands of well-paid government jobs, affect young people directly.