Bangladesh telecommunications minister Zunaid Ahmed Palak said that country’s mobile internet will be restored later on Sunday, more than a week after a nationwide blackout imposed to contain deadly unrest.
Palak told reporters the network would be restored at 3:00 pm (0900 GMT), following the restoration of fixed line broadband connections on Tuesday.
Meanwhile, a student organization in Bangladesh, Students Against Discrimination, announced that they will start protest again unless several of their leaders are released from custody on Sunday.
The recent violence resulted in at least 205 fatalities, according to data compiled by news agency AFP from police and hospital sources.
Despite the ongoing nationwide curfew and the presence of army patrols, which have been in place for over a week, police have arrested thousands of protesters, including at least six student leaders.
Abdul Hannan Masud, a representative of Students Against Discrimination, addressed reporters in an online briefing on Saturday evening, stating that the group’s chief, Nahid Islam, and others should be freed and the cases against them must be withdrawn.
Masud, who did not reveal his location, also called for “visible actions” against government officials and police officers responsible for the deaths of protesters.
He warned that failure to meet these demands would compel Students Against Discrimination to initiate “tough protests” starting from Monday. Islam and two other high-ranking members of the protest group were forcibly removed from a hospital in Dhaka by plainclothes detectives on Friday.
The protests began earlier this month in response to the government’s decision to reintroduce a quota system that reserves over 50% of all government positions for specific candidates.
This move deeply frustrated graduates who are already grappling with a severe employment crisis, as government data indicates that approximately 18 million young Bangladeshis are currently unemployed.
Opponents of the quota system argue that it is being used to fill public sector jobs with supporters of the ruling Awami League. Last week, the Supreme Court of Bangladesh reduced the number of reserved positions but did not meet the protesters’ demands to eliminate the quotas entirely.
Palak told reporters the network would be restored at 3:00 pm (0900 GMT), following the restoration of fixed line broadband connections on Tuesday.
Meanwhile, a student organization in Bangladesh, Students Against Discrimination, announced that they will start protest again unless several of their leaders are released from custody on Sunday.
The recent violence resulted in at least 205 fatalities, according to data compiled by news agency AFP from police and hospital sources.
Despite the ongoing nationwide curfew and the presence of army patrols, which have been in place for over a week, police have arrested thousands of protesters, including at least six student leaders.
Abdul Hannan Masud, a representative of Students Against Discrimination, addressed reporters in an online briefing on Saturday evening, stating that the group’s chief, Nahid Islam, and others should be freed and the cases against them must be withdrawn.
Masud, who did not reveal his location, also called for “visible actions” against government officials and police officers responsible for the deaths of protesters.
He warned that failure to meet these demands would compel Students Against Discrimination to initiate “tough protests” starting from Monday. Islam and two other high-ranking members of the protest group were forcibly removed from a hospital in Dhaka by plainclothes detectives on Friday.
The protests began earlier this month in response to the government’s decision to reintroduce a quota system that reserves over 50% of all government positions for specific candidates.
This move deeply frustrated graduates who are already grappling with a severe employment crisis, as government data indicates that approximately 18 million young Bangladeshis are currently unemployed.
Opponents of the quota system argue that it is being used to fill public sector jobs with supporters of the ruling Awami League. Last week, the Supreme Court of Bangladesh reduced the number of reserved positions but did not meet the protesters’ demands to eliminate the quotas entirely.
Source Agencies
