DHAKA: The administration of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina is about to publicly accept the finding of the nation’s Supreme Court, which eliminated the majority of government employment quotas. This decision was the cause of recent, violent widespread protests throughout the South Asian nation.
The Appellate Division of the Supreme Court on Sunday overturned a lower court ruling that had maintained the quotas, ordering that candidates will be considered for government employment based only on merit and without regard to quotas.
In violent protests around the nation, battles between protestors and Bangladeshi law enforcement forces have resulted in the deaths of almost 150 individuals.
The demonstrators demanded that authorities reverse a ruling made by a high court last month, which reinstated a quota system that reserved around 60% of government positions for certain groups of individuals, including relatives of veterans of the 1971 War.
In response to the court’s decision, the student organization spearheading the protests that have descended into deadly violence halted activities on Monday for 48 hours. The group’s leader stated that they had not want reform “at the expense of so much blood”.
But the student organization behind the demonstration has given the government 48 hours to fulfill eight requests, including Hasina’s public apology and the reopening of university campuses that were closed during the violence.
