Bangladeshi protesters demand end to civil service job quotas

Thousands of Bangladeshi university students threw roadblocks across key highways on Sunday, demanding the end of “discriminatory” quotas for coveted government jobs, including reserving posts for children of liberation heroes.

Students in almost all major universities took part, demanding a merit-based system for well-paid and massively oversubscribed civil service jobs.

“It’s a do-or-die situation for us,” protest coordinator Nahidul Islam said, during marches at Dhaka University.

“Quotas are a discriminatory system,” the 26-year-old added. “The system has to be reformed”.

The current system reserves more than half of posts, totalling hundreds of thousands of government jobs.

That includes 30 per cent reserved for children of those who fought to win Bangladeshi independence in 1971, 10 per cent for women, and 10 per cent set aside for specific districts.

Students said only those quotas supporting ethnic minorities and disabled people – six per cent of jobs – should remain.

Critics say the system benefits children of pro-government groups, who back Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.

Her father, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, was Bangladesh’s founding leader.

Hasina, 76, won her fourth consecutive general election in January, in a vote without genuine opposition parties, with a widespread boycott and a major crackdown against her political opponents.

Critics accuse Bangladeshi courts of rubber-stamping decisions made by her government.

The system was initially abolished after weeks of student protests in 2018.

But in June, Dhaka’s High Court rolled that back, saying the cancellation had been invalid.

Hasina has condemned the protests, saying the matter had been settled by the court.

“Students are wasting their time,” Hasina told female activists