Bangladesh’s minister of state for info and broadcasting has defended the federal government’s dealing with of mass protests, as United Nations consultants known as for an impartial investigation into the federal government’s lethal crackdown on demonstrators.
In an unique interview with Al Jazeera on Thursday, Mohammad Arafat mentioned the nation’s safety forces had performed every part “to deliver again the peace” amid the scholar protests.
He accused “third-party” actors, together with “extremists and terrorists”, of fuelling the unrest.
“We’re not referring to the scholars [as] the terrorists and anarchists. It’s the third social gathering, those that intruded into this motion and began doing all this,” Arafat mentioned on Discuss to Al Jazeera.
“We tried our greatest to de-escalate the strain,” he mentioned, including that “some persons are attempting so as to add gas to the fireplace, try to create a scenario the place they’ll take benefit … and topple the federal government”.
Hundreds of Bangladeshi college students took to the streets earlier this month to demand reforms to the South Asian nation’s quota system, which allocates 30 p.c of presidency jobs to the descendants of veterans who fought for Bangladesh within the 1971 warfare.
Greater than 150 pupil protesters have been killed and 1000’s have been arrested within the crackdown on the demonstrations, in keeping with native media, fuelling tensions throughout the nation of greater than 170 million individuals.
The protests turned violent on July 15 after members of the Bangladesh Chhatra League (BCL) – the scholar wing of the nation’s ruling social gathering – allegedly attacked the protesters.
Police then cracked down on the demonstrations and imposed a curfew. College students had been requested to vacate universities, which had been shut down; companies had been shuttered, and web entry was disrupted nationwide.
The Bangladeshi authorities has come beneath worldwide scrutiny for its dealing with of the protests.
On Thursday, United Nations Human Rights Chief Volker Turk known as for “an neutral, impartial and clear investigation into all alleged human rights violations” that occurred in the course of the crackdown.
“We perceive that many individuals had been subjected to violent assaults by teams reportedly affiliated with the Authorities, and no effort was made to guard them,” Turk mentioned.
In a separate assertion, a bunch of UN consultants additionally known as for an impartial probe into what they described as the federal government’s “violent crackdown on protesters”.
“The federal government is blaming different individuals, others are blaming the federal government; we’d like a full neutral investigation,” one of many consultants, Irene Khan, the UN particular rapporteur on freedom of expression and opinion, instructed Al Jazeera.
“However since there isn’t a belief within the authorities, it needs to be performed with the worldwide group,” Khan mentioned on Thursday.
“We’re calling on the federal government to ask the UN to conduct such an investigation to search out out what went unsuitable, to take accountability, and to carry the perpetrators to account.”
Official dying toll not but decided: Minister
In his interview with Discuss to Al Jazeera, Arafat – the minister – denounced the protesters for storming the headquarters of state broadcaster Bangladesh Tv (BTV) within the capital, Dhaka.
He mentioned policemen guarding the constructing had been outnumbered, and “as a result of they weren’t permitted to open fireplace … these miscreants went contained in the BTV, actually invaded, and set fireplace and began vandalising and destroying all of the property”.
Arafat mentioned the federal government has but to find out an official dying toll from the unrest.
“With regards to the casualties, accidents, and deaths, we’re not keen to discriminate between the police and common individuals, or the protesters, or the individuals from the supporters of the federal government,” he mentioned.
The minister instructed Al Jazeera that an impartial judicial committee would guarantee a radical investigation into what occurred, “so that everybody chargeable for any of those casualties will be dropped at guide.”
Arafat additionally dismissed any requires Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to resign, including she had solely been “defending the individuals”.
On Tuesday, protesters prolonged the suspension of their protests till Friday, however they had been slated to satisfy on Thursday to debate whether or not they would prolong the pause additional.
Amongst their key calls for is a stipulation that Hasina should publicly apologise for the killings of scholars.
They’ve additionally known as on Residence Minister Asaduzzaman Khan, Street Transport and Bridges Minister Obaidul Quader, Schooling Minister Mohibul Hasan Chowdhury Nowfel, and Regulation Minister Anisul Haque to resign from the cupboard and the social gathering.
