Letter from a Bengali Comrade on the Ongoing Student Movement and its Repression

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This letter is from a comrade in Bangladesh to comrades abroad. The nine-point demand is as follows:

1. The prime minister must accept responsibility for the mass killings of students and publicly apologise.
2. The home minister and the road, transport and bridges minister [the latter is also the secretary general of the Awami League], must resign from their [cabinet] positions and the party.
3. Police officers present in the sites where students were killed must be sacked.
4. Vice Chancellors of Dhaka, Jahangirnagar and Rajshahi universities must resign.
5. The police and goons who attacked the students and those who instigated the attacks must be arrested.
6. Families of the killed and injured must be compensated.
7. Bangladesh Chhatra League [BCL, the pro-government student wing, which is, effectively, the government’s vigilante force] must be banned from student politics and a student union established.
8. All educational institutions and halls of residences must be reopened.
9. Guarantees must be provided that no academic or administrative harassment of protesters will take place.

 

Salam Comrade,

We hope you are all doing well there. We are facing a total blackout situation in Bangladesh as I’m writing this. Already more than 150+ students and working people have sacrificed their lives in the fight against Hasina’s government. This fascist Awami government has seized all the media and internet access, and now the only media are news channels and print media which are almost indirectly controlled by the government. People cannot differentiate between the truth and falsehood in this difficult situation.

As far as I know, leaders of the movement are facing abductions and arrests by the agencies of government. The government is saying that some of the leaders are already compromised with the government but most of them are still standing with their demands. The appeal division has declared a 7% quota for the 1st and 2nd class government jobs. 5% of the quota is reserved for the freedom fighters’ families. We condemn this decision because this decision does not reflect the demands of the movement.

In the meantime, we must say this movement is no more a matter of quota. The government has killed so many people in the country and now declared a curfew for an indefinite time. Also, the army has been deployed to control the movement. Basically, the government is pushing for the situation to the extent that political activities are illegal. Many of the anti-Awami leaders have already been arrested. People are also being arrested for participating.

Awami Hasina’s government has become so fascist that it cannot even allow simple just demands for students and has killed more than 150 people till now. Students are now saying there is no other demand but one: Step Down Hasina.

We stand with the nine-point demand of the leaders of the quota reform movement according to Prothom Alo (a Bangladesh-based news media). Withdraw all armed forces from the road and end the curfew. Call for the resignation of total government and fight to create a temporary anti-fascist people’s government.

22/07/2024

Azad

National Committee Member,

Revolutionary Student-Youth Movement/Bangladesh