At least 91 people were killed in Bangladesh protests. Abu Sufian Jewel/Agence France-Pressed. Getty Images
At least 91 people were killed and hundreds injured in clashes between security forces and protesters on Sunday in Bangladesh, as the country’s leaders imposed a new curfew and internet restrictions to try to stop tens of thousands of protesters calling for Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to resign.
The revival of student protests after a deadly government crackdown late last month, as well as a call by the governing party for its own supporters to take to the streets, has plunged the country of over 170 million into a particularly dangerous phase.
The exact number of deaths on Sunday was unclear, but it appeared to be the deadliest day since the protests began in July. A diplomatic official in Dhaka, the capital, said the toll across Bangladesh was at least 72, while tallies by local news media and the protest coordinators put the count at anywhere from 70 to 93. At least 13 of the dead were police officers, the country’s Police Headquarters said in a statement.
Sunday’s toll added to the more than 200 people killed in the crackdown on protesters last month by security forces under Sheikh Hasina, Bangladesh’s increasingly authoritarian leader. In a sign of the risk of further violence, the protest coordinators said they would march on Monday toward the official residence of Ms. Hasina, whose resignation they are demanding.
During a meeting with her top security officials on Sunday, Ms. Hasina called those behind the violence “terrorists” and asked the country’s people “to curb anarchists with iron hands,” Bangladesh’s state news agency reported.
Over the weekend, the tensions flared into the kind of localized clashes across the country that appeared difficult to contain. With the public already angry at the police forces, seeing them as an overzealous extension of Ms. Hasina’s entrenched authority, attention focused on Bangladesh’s powerful military.
Ms. Hasina has worked to bring the military to heel. But it has a history of staging coups and was being watched for how it positions itself in the escalating crisis.
What began as a peaceful student protest last month over a preferential quota system for public-sector jobs has morphed into unprecedented anger at Ms. Hasina’s growing autocracy and her management of the economy.
While the crackdown, which included the arrests of more than 10,000 people and the lodging of police cases against tens of thousands more, temporarily dispersed the protesters, the demonstrations have been back in full force since Friday.
The protesters’ anger over the large numbers of deaths has solidified their demands to a single point: On Saturday, at a rally of tens of thousands, they called for the resignation of Ms. Hasina, who has been in power for the past 15 years.
In response to the resignation call, her Awami League party called on its supporters to join counterprotests — setting up the tense situation that unfolded on Sunday.
孟加拉實施宵禁和網路限制，抗議活動造成至少 91 人死亡
週日，孟加拉安全部隊與抗議者發生衝突，造成至少91 人死亡、數百人受傷，該國領導人實施了新的宵禁和網路限制，試圖阻止數萬名抗議者要求總理謝赫·哈西娜辭職。
上個月末政府進行致命鎮壓後，學生抗議活動死灰復燃，加上執政黨呼籲自己的支持者走上街頭，使這個擁有超過 1.7 億人口的國家陷入了一個特別危險的階段。
週日的具體死亡人數尚不清楚，但這似乎是自 7 月抗議活動開始以來死亡人數最多的一天。 首都達卡的一名外交官員表示，孟加拉全國的死亡人數至少為 72 人，而當地新聞媒體和抗議協調員的統計數字為 70 至 93 人。總部在聲明中表示。
上個月，孟加拉日益獨裁的領導人謝赫哈西娜 (Sheikh Hasina) 領導的安全部隊鎮壓抗議者，造成 200 多人死亡，週日的死亡人數又增加了。 抗議協調員表示，他們將於週一向哈西娜女士的官邸遊行，並要求哈西娜女士辭職，這表明存在進一步暴力的風險。
據孟加拉國國家通訊社報道，週日與高級安全官員會面時，哈西娜稱暴力事件幕後黑手為“恐怖分子”，並要求該國人民“用鐵腕遏制無政府主義者”。
週末，緊張局勢升級為全國範圍內似乎難以遏制的局部衝突。 由於公眾已經對警察部隊感到憤怒，認為他們是哈西娜根深蒂固的權威的過度熱心延伸，人們的注意力集中在孟加拉國強大的軍隊上。
哈西娜女士一直致力於讓軍方就範。 但它有發動政變的歷史，並因其在不斷升級的危機中如何定位而受到關注。
上個月，一場針對公共部門工作優惠配額制度的學生和平抗議活動開始，現已演變成對哈西娜日益獨裁及其經濟管理的前所未有的憤怒。
雖然鎮壓行動包括逮捕一萬多人，並向警方立案起訴數萬人，暫時驅散了抗議者，但自周五以來，示威活動已全面恢復。
抗議者對大量死亡的憤怒將他們的要求強化到了一個點：週六，在數萬人的集會上，他們要求過去15年掌權的哈西娜女士辭職。
為了回應辭職呼籲，她所在的人民聯盟黨呼籲其支持者加入反抗議活動，從而引發了周日出現的緊張局勢。
Source: NYT/CNN
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