It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Thursday, July 25, 2024
Harris tells teachers union she’s ready to fight for country’s future — ‘bring it on’ U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris described a “fight for our most fundamental freedoms” as she spoke to the American Federation of Teachers in Houston Thursday. “We want to ban assault weapons, and they want to ban books,” she said
HOUSTON (AP) — Vice President Kamala Harris told Republicans to “bring it on” in what she described as a “fight for our most fundamental freedoms” as she spoke to the American Federation of Teachers on Thursday.
It was her latest stop in her whirlwind debut as the Democrats’ likely presidential nominee after President Joe Biden abruptly dropped his bid for a second term at the beginning of the week.
Harris praised unions as the foundation of the middle class, and she criticized Republicans for their views on gun control and public education.
“They have the nerve to tell teachers to strap on a gun in the classroom while they refuse to pass commonsense gun safety laws,” she said.
Harris added that “we want to ban assault weapons, and they want to ban books.”
The American Federation of Teachers was the first labor union to formally endorse Harris, and its president Randi Weingarten said she “has electrified this race.”
Harris intends to travel aggressively to spread her message and rally voters. The outreach occurs as the retooled Biden campaign, now under Harris’ control, figures out its strategy for generating turnout and maximizing her time in a 100-plus day sprint to the November election against Republican Donald Trump.
In Trump, Harris is up against the survivor of a recent assassination attempt with tens of millions of loyalists committed to returning him to the Oval Office. Just as Harris is trying to draw a contrast with Trump, he is working to do the same with her.
Trump went on the offensive at a rally Wednesday in North Carolina, calling Harris a “real liberal” who is “much worse” than Biden. The former president claimed without evidence that Harris had misled voters about the health of the 81-year-old Biden and his ability to run for the presidency.
“We know when we organize, mountains move,” she told sorority members. “When we mobilize, nations change. And when we vote, we make history.”
Her campaign is seizing on the growing pop culture interest surrounding her candidacy, releasing a video Thursday that is set to Beyonce’s “Freedom.” The video, designed for social media consumption, underscores a core message of Harris campaign -- freedom on abortion rights, freedom from gun violence and freedom “not just to get by, but to get ahead.”
The 1.8 million-member AFT has backed Harris and her pro-union agenda on the premise that a second Trump term could result in restrictions on organized labor and a potential loss of funding for education.
The AFL-CIO, which represents 60 labor unions including the AFT, has backed Harris. But the vice president has yet to get the endorsement of the United Auto Workers, whose president, Shawn Fain, told CNBC this week that the union’s executive board will make that decision.
Fain spoke at the AFT conference on Wednesday and was blistering in his criticism of Trump. The former president has relied on blue-collar voters to compete politically nationwide, but he failed to win a majority of union households in 2020 when he lost to Biden, according to AP VoteCast.
U$A PRISON NATION INC.
Man dies at 27 from heat exposure at a Georgia prison, lawsuit says
BY CHARLOTTE KRAMON July 25, 2024
ATLANTA (AP) — The Georgia sun scorched the slab of concrete beneath Juan Ramirez Bibiano’s body when nurses found him in a puddle of his own excrement, vomiting, according to a complaint.
Officers left Ramirez in an outdoor cell at Telfair State Prison on July 20, 2023, for five hours without water, shade or ice, even as the outside temperature climbed to 96 degrees by the afternoon, according to a lawsuit brought by his family. That evening, the complaint says, Ramirez died of heart and lung failure caused by heat exposure. He was 27.
Ramirez’s family, including his mother, Norma Bibiano, announced a lawsuit against the Georgia Department of Corrections on Thursday, alleging that officers’ negligent performance of their duties caused his death. The warden directed officers to check on inmates, bring them water and ice and limit their time outside, the complaint says.
The Department of Corrections reported that Ramirez died of natural causes, Jeff Filipovits, one of Norma Bibiano’s attorneys, said at a news conference in Decatur, a suburb of Atlanta.
Georgia’s prisons are under nationwide scrutiny. In 2021, the U.S. Department of Justice opened a civil rights investigation, which is ongoing, into the state’s prisons following concerns about violence, understaffing and sexual abuse.
Outside of Georgia, the Federal Bureau of Prisons has faced complaints of widespread dysfunction. The Associated Press found rampant sexual abuse, criminal misconduct from staff, understaffing, inmate escapes, COVID outbreaks and crumbling infrastructure inside prisons across the country.
The findings led U.S. Sen. John Ossoff of Georgia to introduce bipartisan legislation in 2022 that would overhaul oversight of the agency and improve transparency. The bill passed unanimously in the Senate on July 10.
At an 8 a.m. daily meeting on the day of Ramirez’s death, Telfair State Prison Warden Andrew McFarlane ordered department heads to keep inmates hydrated, bring them ice and avoid leaving them outside for too long in the heat, according to the lawsuit.
A prison staff member brought Ramirez to an outdoor “rec cell” around 10 a.m., after his meeting with a mental health provider, the lawsuit says. The temperature had reached 86 degrees by then.
About 3 p.m., five on-site nurses rushed into the yard in response to an alert from security staff, according to the lawsuit. That is when the nurses found him lying naked on the concrete near his vomit and excrete, the lawsuit says.
Ramirez’s breathing was strained, and his heartbeat was irregular, the lawsuit says. A nurse said that Ramirez was blue and “hot to the touch,” according to the complaint. Nurses pressed cold water bottles onto his groin and under his arms.
Nurses then put an automated external defibrillator on Ramirez’s chest, but it did not deliver a shock. After some time passed, a doctor arrived to help the nurses administer cardiopulmonary resuscitation, the complaint says. He tried to insert tubes into Ramirez, who still had trouble breathing, seemingly because of his yellow stomach bile, according to the complaint.
Later, his internal body temperature was recorded at 107 degrees Fahrenheit (41.7 Celsius), the complaint says.
Around 3:35 p.m., Emergency Medical Services arrived and took Ramirez to a local hospital. He died at 8:25 p.m. from cardiopulmonary arrest brought by heat exposure, according to the complaint.
“The number of deaths that are occurring in custody is galling, and the absolute lawlessness inside of prisons is a humanitarian crisis,” Filipovits said at the news conference of Georgia’s prisons. “I don’t use those words lightly.”
Homicides inside Georgia’s prisons are rising, and the number is higher than in other states, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported. But the Journal-Constitution also reported that starting in March, the Department of Corrections stopped immediately reporting the causes of inmate deaths
The attorneys said they have minimal information about the events leading up to Ramirez’s death. For example, they aren’t sure whether officers brought Ramirez to an outdoor cell for routine or punitive purposes. They say they remain in the dark about which officers were directly in charge of taking care of Ramirez.
“A piece of my heart is gone,” Norma Bibiano said in Spanish at the news conference. Ramirez’s brother sat by her side. Ramirez also left behind a son, and he was a father figure to his partner’s son, the family says.
Bibiano recalled her son as loving, kind and intelligent. She said she always hoped her son would return home, and she misses hearing him say, “I love you, mama” over the phone.
——-
Charlotte Kramon is a corps member for The Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues. Follow Kramon on the social platform X: @charlottekramon
Workers at GM seat supplier in Missouri each tentative agreement, end strike
Assembly line worker Sheila Buckley tries to keep cool while on the picket line as members of United Auto Workers Local 282 are on strike against Lear, a car and truck seat manufacturer in Wentzville, Mo. on Tuesday, July 23, 2024. The strike led to a shutdown at the nearby GM assembly plant.
(Robert Cohen/St. Louis Post-Dispatch via AP)
BY THE ASSOCIATED PRESS July 25, 2024
The union representing workers a Lear Corp. plant in Missouri that makes seats for General Motors vehicles said Thursday it reached a tentative agreement with the company, ending a strike that was in its fourth day.
About 480 workers at Lear Corp. in Wentzville who walked out at midnight Sunday are back at work. They are represented by United Auto Workers union.
“The tentative agreement reached by UAW Local 282 proves, once again, that when workers come together, fighting for fair pay, benefits and working conditions, corporate greed can be beat,” UAW Region 4 Director Brandon Campbell said.
The strike brought production to a standstill Monday at the GM plant in Wentzville, about 40 miles (65 kilometers) west of St. Louis, where the Chevrolet Colorado and GMC Canyon midsize trucks, along with the Chevrolet Express and GMC Savana full-size vans are made.
Speaking to Wall Street analysts Thursday, Tim Brumbaugh, Lear Corp.'s vice president, investor relations said GM is “back to building vehicles this morning, so we couldn’t be more happy for GM and our employees down in Wentzville.”
About 4,600 employees work at the Wentzville GM plant.
Boeing guilty plea deal filed in fatal 737 Max crashes
Boeing violated the DPA "by failing to sufficiently design, implement, and enforce a compliance and ethics program to prevent and detect violations of US fraud laws throughout its operations," prosecutor said in court documents - Copyright GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA/AFP Kevin Dietsch
Boeing will plead guilty to fraud as part of a deal with the US Department of Justice over two fatal 737 MAX crashes, according to a court filing Wednesday.
The agreement comes after prosecutors concluded Boeing flouted an earlier settlement addressing the disasters, in which a total of 346 people were killed in Ethiopia and Indonesia more than five years ago.
The plea deal must be approved by a federal court judge and it includes an additional $243.6 million to be paid by Boeing on top of a previous fine of the same amount.
The high-profile agreement follows the DOJ finding in May that Boeing failed to improve its compliance and ethics program, in breach of a 2021 deferred prosecution agreement (DPA) in the wake of the MAX crashes.
Boeing violated the DPA “by failing to sufficiently design, implement, and enforce a compliance and ethics program to prevent and detect violations of US fraud laws throughout its operations,” prosecutor said in court documents.
Terms of the plea deal call for Boeing to serve three years of “organizational probation”, conditions of which include having an independent monitor and investing at least $455 million on compliance, quality and safety programs, according to the filing.
Families of crash victims have objected to the deal, arguing that it “unfairly makes concessions to Boeing that other criminal defendants would never receive.”
The company’s board of directors will be required to meet the families of victims of the crashes in 2018 and 2019 under terms of the plea deal.
Families of victims have said they will ask the court to reject the plea deal.
“The generous plea agreement rests on deceptive and offensive premises,” said an objection filed by their legal team when word of the plea deal first surfaced.
The original DPA was announced in January 2021, over charges that Boeing knowingly defrauded US aviation regulators.
That agreement required Boeing to pay $2.5 billion in fines and restitution in exchange for immunity from criminal prosecution.
A three-year probationary period was set to expire this year.
But in January, Boeing was plunged back into crisis mode when a 737 MAX flown by Alaska Airlines was forced to make an emergency landing after a fuselage panel blew out mid-flight.
The incident launched a new wave of scrutiny into Boeing’s manufacturing and safety practices, with formal probes initiated by US regulators and Congress.
In a May 14 letter to the court overseeing the MAX case, DOJ officials said that Boeing flouted its obligations under the DPA by “failing to design, implement, and enforce a compliance and ethics program to prevent and detect violations of the US fraud laws throughout its operations.”
The conclusion opened up the company to possible prosecution, with Boeing initially arguing it had not violated the 2021 agreement.
FREE PAUL WATSON!
Denmark awaits Japan’s extradition request for anti-whaling activist
Paul Watson, 73, is the founder of direct action group Sea Shepherd - Copyright AFP PHILIPPE DESMAZES
Denmark is waiting for Japan’s extradition for the veteran anti-whaling activist Paul Watson, arrested this weekend in Greenland, before ruling on the case, the justice ministry said Wednesday.
Watson, the 73-year-old American-Canadian founder of activist group Sea Shepherd, was arrested on Sunday in Greenland, an autonomous Danish territory, under an international arrest warrant issued by Japan.
He will remain in custody until August 15, while the Danish justice ministry decides whether he should be extradited.
But a justice ministry statement said Wednesday: “Extradition from Greenland for prosecution in other countries can only occur following an extradition request from the country that issued the arrest warrant.”
Only when such a request was received would the ministry decide whether there were grounds to extradite, the statement added. And for the moment, they are still waiting to hear from Japan.
“Such an extradition request must be submitted no later than 30 days after the arrest.”
But Japan’s government, in its first comments on Watson’s arrest, said Wednesday it had long been pressing countries to detain him.
Government spokesman Yoshimasa Hayashi told reporters in Tokyo the Coast Guard authority would “take the appropriate action” in the case, in consultation with other ministries.
– ‘Appropriate action’ –
French President Emmanuel Macron’s office said Tuesday that he had already asked the Danish authorities not to extradite Watson, who has lived in France for the past year.
French screen legend Brigitte Bardot is among the campaigners who have rallied to his cause, calling for his release.
Watson was arrested after arriving in Nuuk, the capital of Greenland, when the ship John Paul DeJoria docked to refuel.
The vessel was on its way to “intercept” Japan’s new whaling factory vessel in the North Pacific, said a statement from the Captain Paul Watson Foundation (CPWF).
Watson was arrested on the basis of an Interpol Red Notice issued in 2012, when Japan has accused him of causing damage and injury to one of its Japanese whaling ships in the Antarctic two years earlier.
At the time Japanese ships, pursued aggressively by activists, hunted whales in the Antarctic and North Pacific for “scientific” purposes.
The CPWF said the arrest had come as a “surprise since the Foundation’s lawyers had reported that the Red Notice had been withdrawn”.
Japan, Norway and Iceland are the last three countries in the world to practice commercial whale hunting.
25 killed, dozens missing in migrant wreck off Mauritania: IOM
By AFP July 24, 2024 Since June 2024, more than 76 boats with more than 6,000 surviving migrants have disembarked in Mauritania - Copyright AFP Raul ARBOLEDA
At least 25 migrants have died and dozens are missing after their boat capsized off Mauritania, the country’s news agency AMI said Wednesday, in the latest in a string of migrant tragedies off the coast of West Africa.
The Mauritanian coastguard “saved the lives of 103 illegal immigrants and recovered 25 bodies, following the sinking of their boat off the coast of the capital Nouakchott”, AMI reported, citing a coastguard commander.
Earlier, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) said at least 15 people had died in the wreck.
“Approximately 300 people boarded a pirogue in The Gambia and spent seven days at sea before the boat capsized near Nouakchott on July 22, 2024,” the IOM said.
“Among the survivors, 10 people were urgently referred to hospitals for medical care, and four unaccompanied and separated children were identified,” the IOM said.
The source from the Mauritanian coastguard said the vessel was carrying 140 to 180 people, mostly Senegalese and Gambian.
The boat had broken up in the middle of the sea and the captain abandoned the vessel, the source said.
Since June, more than 76 boats with more than 6,000 surviving migrants have disembarked in Mauritania, with at least 190 dead and missing migrants, the IOM statement said. – Perilous crossing –
Every year, thousands of Africans fleeing poverty and unemployment in search of a better future embark on the perilous route to Europe.
But the crossing is fraught with tragedy.
In early July, nearly 90 migrants bound for Europe perished when their boat capsized off the coast of Mauritania.
Twenty-six migrants who set sail from Guinea died when their boat sank off Senegal at the beginning of May.
The Atlantic route to Spain’s Canary Islands is particularly dangerous because of strong currents, with migrants travelling in overloaded, often unseaworthy, boats without enough drinking water.
But it has grown in popularity due to increased vigilance by authorities in the Mediterranean.
From January 1 to July 15 alone, more than 19,700 migrants arrived irregularly in the Canary Islands using this route, the IOM said.
That is a 160 percent increase from the same period in 2023, when 7,590 migrants were recorded.
Off the coast of North Africa, the Canary Islands lie 100 kilometres (62 miles) away at their closest point.
More than 5,000 migrants died while trying to reach Spain by sea in the first five months of this year, or the equivalent of 33 deaths per day, according to Caminando Fronteras, a Spanish charity.
That is the highest daily number of deaths since it began collating figures in 2007, and the vast majority were on the Atlantic route.
Journalists in Kenya protest attacks on media freedoms
By AFP July 24, 2024 Journalists have suffered attacks at the hands of police during the anti-government protests - Copyright AFP/File SIMON MAINA Hillary ORINDE
Dozens of journalists joined marches in Kenya on Wednesday in protest at what they see as heavy-handed government tactics to stifle media freedoms, including police attacks on journalists during the demonstrations that have rocked the country for the past five weeks.
The journalists — many wearing white — held placards reading “Journalists lives matter”, “Shoot not the messenger” and “End the brutality” as they staged rallies across several towns and cities.
The protests were organised in the wake of attacks on journalists covering the anti-government demonstrations, among other grievances.
Launched last month by young Gen-Z Kenyans over tax increases, the rallies have spiralled into deadly violence and morphed into wider anger against President William Ruto’s government.
At least 50 people have been killed and more than 400 wounded since the start of the protests on June 18, according to rights groups.
Journalists covering the events have been shot at, tear-gassed and hit with batons and water cannon, media groups say, further eroding trust in the East African nation’s security forces.
“Freedom of the media and freedom of expression generally is on the verge of being eroded, courtesy of a rogue security apparatus,” the Kenya Editors Guild said in a statement last week.
On Wednesday, journalists in the capital Nairobi presented a petition to the police headquarters before marching to parliament.
“We are asking for protection from the police and for them to stop shooting and attacking journalists with a lot of excessive force,” said the secretary general of the Kenya Union of Journalists, Erick Oduor.
– ‘Full-blown conflict’ –
State-funded regulator the Media Council of Kenya said it was “deeply concerned” about the deterioration of the relationship between the media and the government.
“What started as a perception about biased media coverage of the 2022 general election has now escalated into full blown conflict pitting the government against the media; resulting in unwarranted threats, blame games, coercion, intimidating and bad blood,” it said in a statement on Monday.
Kenya — an East African economic powerhouse — has long stood as an oasis of democracy in a volatile region.
Media watchdog Reporters Without Borders, known by its French acronym RSF, ranks Kenya 102nd out of 180 countries on its global list of press freedom, sayig “investigations into abuses committed against journalists rarely result in convictions”.
Kenyan police are often accused by rights groups of using excessive force and carrying out unlawful killings, especially in poor neighbourhoods.
A Kenyan court this month found police acted unlawfully over the October 2022 killing of Pakistani journalist Arshad Sharif in a town south of Nairobi.
Sharif, a strident critic of Pakistan’s powerful military establishment and a supporter of former premier Imran Khan, was shot in the head when Kenyan police opened fire on his car.
Myanmar junta, ethnic armed group claim control of military regional HQ
By AFP July 25, 2024 The Myanmar military and an ethnic minority armed group both claimed to be in control of Lashio - Copyright the Hostages Families Forum Headquarters/AFP -
Myanmar’s junta and an ethnic minority armed group both claimed on Thursday they were in control of a town and regional military command in northern Shan state following days of clashes.
Fighting has rocked the town of Lashio, home to the military’s northeastern command, since July 3, when an alliance of ethnic armed groups renewed an offensive against junta troops.
Local media run by the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA) reported the group “fully captured the headquarters of the Northeast Military command in Lashio” on Thursday morning and also captured Lashio town, home to some 150,000 people
But junta spokesman Zaw Min Tun told reporters the claim was “not true”.
“The insurgents infiltrated the outskirts of Lashio so (the security forces) have been following and clearing them,” he said, without giving details.
AFP was unable to reach a MNDAA spokesman for comment.
The northeastern command is located in the north of Lashio.
A video uploaded to social media claiming to have been shot in Lashio on Thursday morning showed deserted streets with no soldiers in sight.
AFP reporters have geolocated the video to a site in the town around two kilometres from the command.
Northern Shan state has been rocked by fighting since late last month, when an alliance of ethnic armed groups renewed an offensive against the military along the highway to China’s Yunnan province.
The clashes have shredded a Beijing-brokered truce that in January halted an offensive by the alliance of the Arakan Army (AA), the Ta’ang National Liberation Army (TNLA) and the MNDAA.
On July 10 TNLA fighters briefly captured a battalion command in Lashio, before junta air strikes forced them to retreat, one of its commanders told AFP at the time.
The military has carried out several air strikes around the town during the fighting, according to residents.
Dozens of civilians have been killed or wounded in the recent fighting, according to the junta and local rescue groups.
Neither the junta nor the ethnic alliance have released figures on their own casualties.
China is a major ally and arms supplier to the junta, but analysts say it also maintains ties with armed ethnic groups in Myanmar that hold territory near its border.
Myanmar’s borderlands are home to myriad ethnic armed groups who have battled the military since independence from Britain in 1948 for autonomy and control of lucrative resources.
Some have given shelter and training to newer “People’s Defence Forces” (PDFs) that have sprung up to battle the military after the coup in 2021.
UN human rights chief calls on Bangladesh to disclose protest crackdown details
UN human rights chief Volker Turk Thursday demanded Bangladesh disclose details surrounding the crackdown on anti-job quota protests last week that killed 193 people. Turk also called on the government to restore internet connection, which was cut off Friday in response to the student-led demonstrations. Thousands of military personnel continue to patrol the country where protests have subsided after the Supreme Court scrapped most of the government-imposed quotas.
Issued on: 25/07/2024 -
Charred vehicles are pictured at the state broadcaster Bangladesh Television, after students set it on fire during the anti-quota protest, in Dhaka on July 24, 2024.
The UN rights chief called Thursday on Bangladesh to urgently disclose the details of last week's crackdown on protests amid accounts of "horrific violence", calling for "an impartial, independent and transparent investigation".
"We understand that many people were subjected to violent attacks by groups reportedly affiliated with the Government, and no effort was made to protect them," Volker Turk said in a statement.
Last week's violence killed at least 193 people including several police officers, according to an AFP count of victims reported by police and hospitals, in one of the biggest upheavals of Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's 15-year tenure.
The unrest was sparked by protests against a public jobs quota scheme that critics say gives preference to allies of Hasina's ruling party.
Thousands of troops are still patrolling cities and a nationwide internet shutdown remains largely in effect, but clashes have subsided since protest leaders announced a temporary halt to new demonstrations.
Turk's statement lamented reports that some of the more than 1,000 injured in last week's crackdown were denied medical care, while many people remained missing.
"At least two journalists were reportedly killed and scores of others injured. Hundreds of people were also reportedly arrested, including opposition figures," the statement said.
00:49
The government, it said, "must provide the details of those killed, injured, or detained for the benefit of their families".
The UN high commissioner for human rights also called on the government to restore full internet access to allow people, including journalists, to communicate freely.
"Blunt measures such as a blanket deliberate internet shutdown for a prolonged period contravene international law, affecting States' obligations to respect freedom of expression and the right to peaceful assembly," he said.
This also breached "a wide range of other rights, including freedom of association and of movement, the rights to health and education, and a number of economic rights," Turk said.
"Internet shutdowns can also reduce public scrutiny and knowledge of conduct of law enforcement agencies, and so risk heightening impunity for their actions," he warned.
(AFP)
Bangladesh PM surveys destruction as unrest recedes
By AFP July 25, 2024 The remains of Bangladesh state broadcaster after students set it on fire during protests against government jobs quota system - Copyright AFP Munir UZ ZAMAN
Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina wept Thursday as she surveyed the destruction wrought by days of deadly unrest, as student leaders weighed the future of the protests that precipitated the disorder.
Last week’s violence killed at least 193 people including several police officers, according to an AFP count of victims reported by police and hospitals, in one of the biggest upheavals of Hasina’s 15-year tenure.
The unrest was sparked by protests against a public jobs quota scheme that critics say gives preference to allies of Hasina’s ruling party.
Thousands of troops are still patrolling cities and a nationwide internet shutdown remains largely in effect, but clashes have subsided since protest leaders announced a temporary halt to new demonstrations.
Hasina, 76, spent the morning surveying destruction in the capital Dhaka, where the commuter rail connecting the sprawling megacity of 20 million people was shut down after mob attacks on its network.
“Over 15 years, I’ve built this country,” she told reporters afterwards, in a condemnation of protesters for damaging city infrastructure. “What didn’t I do for the people?
“Who has benefitted from what we have done?” she added. “Do I ride on the metro? Does the government only ride? Do our ministers only ride? Or is it in fact the general public that rides?”
Pictures released by Hasina’s office showed the premier flanked by an entourage and weeping at the sight of a vandalised metro station in an outlying Dhaka suburb.
The station is among several government buildings and dozens of police posts torched or vandalised during the height of last week’s unrest.
With calm returning to cities around Bangladesh, Hasina’s government ordered another relaxation to the curfew it imposed on the weekend, allowing free movement for seven hours between 10:00 am and 5:00 pm.
Streets in Dhaka were choked with commuter traffic in the morning, days after ferocious clashes between police and protesters had left them almost deserted.
Banks, government offices and the country’s economically vital garment factories had already reopened on Wednesday after all being shuttered last week.
Student leaders were meanwhile set to meet later Thursday to decide whether or not to again extend their protest moratorium, which is due to expire on Friday.
Students Against Discrimination, the group responsible for organising this month’s rallies, said it expected the government to make some concessions.
“We demand an apology from Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to the nation for the mass murder of students,” Asif Mahmud, one of the group’s coordinators, told AFP.
“We also want the sacking of the home minister and education minister.”
Mahmud added that the estimated toll in the unrest was understated, with his group working on its own list of confirmed deaths. – Youth jobs crisis –
Police have arrested at least 2,500 people since the violence began last week, according to an AFP tally.
Protests began after the June reintroduction of a scheme reserving more than half of government jobs for certain candidates, including nearly a third for descendants of veterans from Bangladesh’s independence war.
With around 18 million young people in Bangladesh out of work, according to government figures, the move deeply upset graduates facing an acute jobs crisis.
Critics say the quota is used to stack public jobs with loyalists to Hasina’s Awami League.
The Supreme Court cut the number of reserved jobs on Sunday but fell short of protesters’ demands to scrap the quotas entirely.
Hasina has ruled the country since 2009 and won her fourth consecutive election in January after a vote without genuine opposition.
Her government is also accused by rights groups of misusing state institutions to entrench its hold on power and stamp out dissent, including the extrajudicial killing of opposition activists.
Burned TV station showcases anger at Bangladesh PM
By AFP July 24, 2024 The charred remains of state broadcaster Bangladesh Television after students set it on fire during protests - Copyright AFP Munir UZ ZAMAN
Shafiqul ALAM
Torn portraits of Bangladesh’s independence hero litter a ransacked state television station — a pointed expression of public fury against his daughter, who just witnessed the worst unrest of her premiership.
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina addressed the nation on Bangladesh Television (BTV) last week to appeal for calm, just as a police crackdown on student protests was poised to tip into violent disorder.
The next day a mob of hundreds stormed the state broadcaster and set fire to an office building, along with dozens of other government and police posts around the capital Dhaka.
They also attacked a gallery hosting around 150 portraits of the premier’s father Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, who led the country after its devastating 1971 liberation war with Pakistan until his assassination four years later.
“This is a war zone,” Bangladeshi information minister Mohammad Ali Arafat told reporters invited by the government and BTV to survey the destruction on Wednesday.
He gestured to oil paintings of Rahman strewn on the ground, disfigured by knives used to stab through the leader’s face.
“Does this look like a peaceful protest to you?”
Mujib’s nationbuilding role has been both lauded and dismissed by successive Bangladesh governments, with memories of the war and famine that birthed the country still polarising its people more than half a century since independence.
But Hasina has foregrounded her father’s legacy to such an extent that critics accuse her of establishing a personality cult designed to entrench her rule.
Since she took office a second time in 2009, Mujib’s image has appeared on every banknote and in hundreds of public murals across the South Asian nation of 170 million people.
Portraits like those in BTV’s Dhaka headquarters are not only commonplace, but a legal requirement: Hasina’s government changed the constitution to require that they be hung in every school, government office and diplomatic mission.
During Hasina’s speech on BTV last week, given in a failed effort to quell the rising tensions soon to unleash mayhem across Bangladesh, several portraits of her father hung around her office appeared on the broadcast. – ‘Secular blasphemy law’ –
The unrest began last week when the youth wing of Hasina’s ruling Awami League and police officers attempted to suppress running student demonstrations against job quotas for civil servant hires.
The scheme was introduced by Hasina’s father in 1972 and until Sunday reserved nearly a third of all government jobs for the families of veterans from the independence war with Pakistan.
Hasina, 76, inflamed by likening protesters to the Bangladeshis who had collaborated with Pakistan during that conflict.
The premier won her fourth consecutive election in January after a vote without genuine opposition.
Her government is accused by rights groups of misusing state institutions to entrench its hold on power and stamp out dissent, including by the extrajudicial killing of opposition activists.
Hasina’s father casts a long shadow over her own leadership: she refers to his assassination in a 1975 coup in almost every speech she gives, her voice often choking with emotion.
The military regime that followed did its best to sideline Mujib’s contribution to the country entirely, but even considered at a remove from Bangladesh’s deeply polarised politics, his legacy remains complex.
Towards the end of his life, Mujib abolished multi-party democracy and imposed media restrictions that shuttered all but four state-controlled newspapers.
Hasina’s critics often evoke autocratic parallels between Mujib and his daughter.
One senior human rights activist in Bangladesh said, on condition of anonymity for fear of retribution, that the now-ubiquitous presence of Mujib’s portrait in public spaces made the country resemble “one-party states”.
“She has basically introduced a secular blasphemy law in the country for her father,” the activist told AFP in January.
Workers sort through the remains of a garment factory torched during the protests - Copyright AFP/File SIMON MAINA
Garment factories and banks reopened in Bangladesh Wednesday after authorities eased a curfew imposed to contain deadly clashes sparked by student protests over civil service employment quotas.
Last week’s violence killed at least 186 people, according to an AFP count of victims reported by police and hospitals, during some of the worst unrest of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s tenure.
Thousands of troops are patrolling cities around the South Asian country to keep order, and most Bangladeshis remain without internet nearly a week after a nationwide shutdown was imposed.
But with calm returning to the streets after several days of unbridled mayhem, the country’s economically vital textile factories resumed operations after government clearance.
“We were worried about the future of our company,” 40-year-old factory worker Khatun, who gave only one name, told AFP.
Despite the disruption, Khatun said she supported the demands of student protesters to reform government hiring rules and was shocked by last week’s violence.
“The government should implement all their demands,” she said. “A lot of them were killed. They sacrificed for future generations.”
The garment industry generates $50 billion in yearly export revenue for Bangladesh, employing millions of young women to sew clothes for H&M, Zara, Gap and other leading international brands.
A spokesperson for the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association told AFP that garment factories had resumed business “across the country”.
Hasina’s home minister Asaduzzaman Khan agreed to exempt textile workers from an ongoing curfew to allow them to return to work, the peak body’s spokesman said.
The curfew was eased Wednesday to allow some commerce to resume but remains in effect for most Bangladeshis for 19 hours each day.
Banks, the stock exchange in the capital Dhaka, and some government offices also opened between 10:00 am and 3:00 pm to match the daily break in the stay-home order, government spokesman Shibli Sadiq told AFP.
– ‘So much blood’ –
The student group which led this month’s protests has suspended demonstrations until at least Friday, with one leader saying they had not wanted reform “at the expense of so much blood”.
Police have arrested at least 2,500 people since the violence began last week.
Hasina’s government says the stay-home order will be relaxed further as the situation improves.
Broadband internet was being gradually restored on Tuesday evening but mobile internet — a key communication method for protest organisers — remained inoperative.
Internet connectivity across Bangladesh was still around 20 percent of normal levels, according to data published by US-based monitor Netblocks.
With around 18 million young people in Bangladesh out of work, according to government figures, the June reintroduction of the quota scheme — halted since 2018 — deeply upset graduates facing an acute jobs crisis.
Critics say the quota is used to stack public jobs with loyalists to Hasina’s Awami League.
The Supreme Court on Sunday cut the number of reserved jobs but fell short of protesters’ demands to scrap the quotas entirely.
Hasina, 76, has ruled the country since 2009 and won her fourth consecutive election in January after a vote without genuine opposition.
Her government is also accused by rights groups of misusing state institutions to entrench its hold on power and stamp out dissent, including by the extrajudicial killing of opposition activists.
