August 2024 Kate Sharpley Library Bulletin online

Invisible or just underrated? Thoughts on anarchist solidarity with the Miners’ Strike of 1984-85 

From Kate Sharpley Library

KSL: Bulletin of the Kate Sharpley Library No. 114-115, August 2024 [Double issue] has just been posted on our site: https://www.katesharpleylibrary.net/m0cj0z

The pdf is up at https://www.katesharpleylibrary.net/c868p3

Why We Need a Four-Day Workweek

AND A FOUR HOUR DAY WITH FULL PAY

The outdated five-day workweek is failing today’s workers. Shortening the workweek reprioritizes the well-being of workers, addresses economic inequality, and aligns work with the needs of the modern era.

By A. J. Schumann

August 8, 2024

Source: Inequality.org

Image by NAS Sigonella, public domain



Earlier this year, Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) introduced the Thirty-Two Hour Workweek Act. This legislation aims to reduce our standard forty-hour workweek down to 32, spread over four days and without a reduction in pay.

The proposed act underscores the need to modernize our labor policy to adequately meet the demands for more flexible work schedules and a healthier work-life balance. As technology advances and the nature of work evolves, so too should the amount of time we spend in the workplace.

The five-day, forty-hour workweek is increasingly becoming a relic of the twentieth century, ill-suited to supporting the well-being of workers today. Reclaiming a weekday enables workers to devote more time to other enriching aspects of life, including recreation, social connection, education, and political engagement.

Our standard workweek — established with the passage of the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 — was the result of a decades-long struggle waged by labor unions fighting against grueling hours and unsafe working conditions. Driven by the plight of industrial workers toiling for 60 or even 70 hours a week, labor activists advocated for “eight hours for work, eight hours for rest, and eight hours for what you will.”

The fight was not merely about increasing leisure; it was also about securing a greater share of the surplus workers helped produce that was being hoarded by a small class of wealthy individuals.

Unions succeeded in achieving that goal with the economic boom that immediately followed World War II. Yet today, we are witnessing a troubling regression into what can only be described as a Second Gilded Age, characterized by a weakening of labor unions, a fall in the labor share of income, and an alarming concentration of wealth at the top, facilitated by neoliberal policies and the mass exploitation of the working-class.

Many workers today still endure long shifts of ten to twelve-hours, a stark reminder that the eight-hour workday achieved by the Fair Labor Standards Act is still not universally realized. In fact, a 2023 Gallup poll found that 27 percent of workers labor more than 45 hours per week, and 15 percent work more than 60. This overwork epidemic is exacerbated by the rise of psychological distress and an “always-on” culture that actively discourages a healthy work-life balance.

A report published earlier this year by the consulting firm Mercer found that over 80 percent of employees are at risk of burnout due to financial strain, exhaustion, and excessive workloads.

The Covid-19 pandemic cracked open a wider discourse about burnout, including the so-called Great Resignation, wherein disillusioned workers chose to leave their jobs due to the lack of flexibility, inadequate compensation, and limited opportunities for career growth and advancement.

The trend towards “quiet quitting,” which affected at least half of the U.S. labor force in 2022, is evidence that workers are rejecting the current model of work, which demands long hours in exchange for insufficient gains.

A shortened workweek is the key to fostering a healthier, more engaged, and more productive workforce. A recent pilot program organized by the nonprofit advocacy organization 4 Day Week Global saw nearly 3,000 workers in more than 60 companies in the United Kingdom transition to a four-day workweek and found that 71 percent of participants reported feeling less burned out. Iceland conducted its own trial and found similar improvements in life satisfaction amongst its employees, and now nearly 90 percent of the workforce have reduced hours. The success of these trials suggests that productivity need not be sacrificed for greater work-life balance. For instance, Microsoft Japan’s experiment with a four-day workweek resulted in a 40 percent increase in productivity and greater workplace efficiency.

The call for a four-day workweek is fundamentally a matter of economic justice. While worker productivity has grown by over 60 percent since the 1970s, wages have only increased by about 15 percent, according to an analysis by the Economic Policy Institute. A reduction in work hours could help address these disparities by allowing more people to share in the economic benefits of increased productivity.

There are also climate benefits to adopting a shorter workweek. A pilot program encompassing 360,000 workers in Valencia, Spain found that long weekends were accompanied by a drop in CO2 emissions. This supports previous research that a reduction in work hours cuts down on carbon-intensive commutes and enables greater energy savings. Perhaps the Paris Agreement’s goals for net zero emissions by midcentury is best achieved by granting us an extra day off.

Like their predecessors who fought for the eight-hour day, labor unions are leading the charge in the fight for a four-day workweek. The United Auto Workers (UAW) adopted a 32-hour workweek with no reduction in pay as part of their strike demands last year, and although it wasn’t achieved at the bargaining table, it remains a facet of their agenda going forward.

The AFL-CIO has committed to fighting for a shorter workweek and supports the bill proposed by Senator Sanders. This push from organized labor signals a renewed effort to address the inequities of the modern workplace by reimagining the future of work.

The five-day workweek was once an innovative reform, but it is now anachronistic in a world where the demands of modern work are increasingly out of step with the needs of workers. By adopting a shorter workweek, we can begin to address pressing issues of employee burnout, job satisfaction, and economic inequality.

This is not just about reconfiguring work hours — it’s about realigning work with its essential purpose of enhancing life, freeing up time to engage in creative pursuits, be with family and friends, and fight for a more just and equitable world.

1933

The Conundrums of Bangladeshi Politics

By Vijay Prashad

August 8, 2024

Source: Originally published by Z. Feel free to share widely.

Bangladesh protests. (Photo: Redwoan Ahmed)

On Monday, August 5, former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina boarded a Bangladesh Air Force C-130J military transport in a hurry and fled to Hindon Air Force base, outside Delhi. Her plane was refueled and reports said that she intended to fly on either to the United Kingdom (her niece, Tulip Siddiq is a minister in the new Labor government), Finland (her nephew Radwan Mujib Siddiq is married to a Finnish national), or the United States (her son Sajeeb Wajed Joy is a dual Bangladesh-US national). Army Chief Waker uz-Zaman, who only became Army Chief six weeks ago and was her relative by marriage, informed her earlier in the day that he was taking charge of the situation and would create an interim government to hold future elections.

Sheikh Hasina was the longest-serving prime minister in Bangladesh’s history. She was the prime minister from 1996 to 2001, and then from 2009 to 2024—a total of 20 years. This was a sharp contrast to her father Sheikh Mujib, who was assassinated in 1975 after four years in power, or General Ziaur Rahman who was assassinated in 1981 after six years in power. In a scene reminiscent of the end of Mahinda Rajapaksa’s rule in Sri Lanka, jubilant crowds of thousands crashed the gates of Ganabhaban, the official residence of the prime minister, and jubilantly made off with everything they could find.

Tanzim Wahab, photographer and chief curator of the Bengal Foundation, told me, “When [the masses] storm into the palace and make off with pet swans, elliptical machines, and palatial red sofas, you can feel the level of subaltern class fury that built up against a rapacious regime.” There was widespread celebration across Bangladesh, along with bursts of attacks against buildings identified with the government—private TV channels, and palatial homes of government ministers were a favored target for arson. Several local-level leaders in Sheikh Hasina’s Awami League have already been killed (Mohsin Reza, a local president of the party, was beaten to death in Khulna).

The situation in Bangladesh remains fluid, but it is also settling quickly into a familiar formula of an “interim government” that will hold new elections. Political violence in Bangladesh is not unusual, having been present since the birth of the country in 1971. Indeed, one of the reasons why Sheikh Hasina reacted so strongly to any criticism or protest was her fear that such activity would repeat what she experienced in her youth. Her father, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman (1920-1975), the founder of Bangladesh, was assassinated in a coup d’état on August 15, 1975, along with most of his family. Sheikh Hasina and her sister survived because they were in Germany at that time—the two sisters fled Bangladesh together on the same helicopter this week. She has been the victim of multiple assassination attempts, including a grenade attack in 2004 that left her with a hearing problem. Fear of such an attempt on her life made Sheikh Hasina deeply concerned about any opposition to her, which is why up to 45 minutes before her departure she wanted the army to again act with force against the gathering crowds.

However, the army read the atmosphere. It was time for her to leave.

A contest has already begun over who will benefit from the removal of Sheikh Hasina. On the one side are the students, led by the Bangladesh Student Uprising Central Committee of about 158 people and six spokespersons. Lead spokesperson Nahid Islam made the students’ views clear: “Any government other than the one we recommended would not be accepted. We won’t betray the bloodshed by the martyrs for our cause. We will create a new democratic Bangladesh through our promise of security of life, social justice, and a new political landscape.” At the other end are the military and the opposition political forces (including the primary opposition party Bangladesh National Party, the Islamist party Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami, and the small left party Ganosamhati Andolan). While the Army’s first meetings were with these opposition parties, a public outcry over the erasure of the student movement forced the Army to meet with the Student Central Committee and listen to their primary demands.

There is a habit called polti khawa or “changing the team jersey midway through a football match” that prevails in Bangladesh, with the military being the referee in charge at all times. This slogan is being used in public discourse now to draw attention to any attempt by the military to impose a mere change of jersey when the students are demanding a wholesale change of the rules of the game. Aware of this, the military has accepted the student demand that the new government be led by economist Muhammad Yunus, Bangladesh’s only Nobel Prize winner. Yunus, as the founder of the microcredit movement and promoter of “social business,” used to be seen as primarily a phenomenon in the neoliberal NGO world. However, the Hasina government’s relentless political vendetta against him over the last decade, and his decision to speak up for the student movement, have transformed him into an unlikely “guardian” figure for the protesters. The students see him as a figurehead although his neoliberal politics of austerity might be at odds with their key demand, which is for employment.

Students

Even prior to independence and despite the rural character of the region, the epicenter of Bangladeshi politics has been in urban areas, with a focus on Dhaka. Even as other forces entered the political arena, students remain key political actors in Bangladesh. One of the earliest protests in post-colonial Pakistan was the language movement (bhasha andolan) that emerged out of Dhaka University, where student leaders were killed during an agitation in 1952 (they are memorialized in the Shaheed Minar, or Martyrs’ Pillar, in Dhaka). Students became a key part of the freedom struggle for liberation from Pakistan in 1971, which is why the Pakistani army targeted the universities in Operation Searchlight which led to massacres of student activists. The political parties that emerged in Bangladesh after 1971 grew largely through their student wings—the Awami League’s Bangladesh Chhatra League, the Bangladesh National Party’s Bangladesh Jatiotabadi Chatradal, and the Jamaat-e-Islami’s Bangladesh Islami Chhatra Shibir.

Over the past decade, students in Bangladesh have been infuriated by the growing lack of employment despite the bustling economy, and by what they perceived as a lack of care from the government. The latter was demonstrated to them by the callous comments made by Shajahan Khan, a minister in Sheikh Hasina’s government, who smirked as he dismissed news that a bus had killed two college students on Airport Road, Dhaka, in July 2019. That event led to a massive protest movement by students of all ages for road safety, to which the government responded with arrests (including incarceration for 107 days of the photojournalist Shahidul Alam).

Behind the road safety protests, which earned greater visibility for the issue, was another key theme. Five years previously, in 2013, students who were denied access to the Bangladesh Civil Service began a protest over restrictive quotas for government jobs. In February 2018, this issue returned through the work of students in the Bangladesh Sadharon Chhatra Odhikar Songrokkhon Parishad (Bangladesh General Students’ Rights Protection Forum). When the road safety protests occurred, the students raised the quota issue (as well as the issue of inflation). By law, the government reserved seats in its employment for people in underdeveloped districts (10 percent), women (10 percent), minorities (5 percent), and the disabled (1 percent) as well as for descendants of freedom fighters (30 percent).

It is the latter quota that has been contested since 2013 and which returned as an emotive issue this year for the student protesters—especially after the prime minister’s incendiary comment at a press conference that those protesting the freedom fighter quotas were “rajakarer natni” (grandchildren of war traitors). British journalist David Bergman, who is married to prominent Bangladeshi activist lawyer Sara Hossain and was hounded into exile by the Hasina government, called this comment the “terrible error” that ended the government.

Military Islam

In February 2013, Abdul Quader Mollah of the Jamaat-e-Islami was sentenced to life in prison for crimes against humanity during Bangladesh’s liberation war (he was known to have killed at least 344 civilians). When he left the court, he made a V sign, whose arrogance inflamed large sections of Bangladesh’s society. Many in Dhaka gathered at Shahbag, where they formed a Gonojagoron Moncho (Mass Awakening Platform). This protest movement pushed the Supreme Court to reassess the verdict, and Mollah was hanged on December 12. The Shahbag movement brought to the surface a long-term tension in Bangladesh regarding the role of religion in politics.

Sheikh Mujibur Rahman initially claimed that Bangladesh would be a socialist and secular country. After his assassination by the military, general Ziaur Rahman took over the country and governed it from 1975 to 1981. During this time, Zia brought religion back into public life, welcomed the Jamaat-e-Islami from banishment (which had been due to its participation in the genocide of 1971), and—in 1978—formed the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) on nationalist lines with a strong critical stance toward India. General Hussain Muhammad Ershad, who took control after his own coup in 1982 and ruled until 1990, went further, declaring that Islam was the state’s religion. This provided a political contrast with the views of Mujib, and of his daughter Sheikh Hasina who took the reins of her father’s party, the Awami League, in 1981.

The stage was set for a long-term contest between Sheikh Hasina’s centrist-secular Awami League and the BNP, which was taken over by Zia’s wife Khaleda Zia after the General was assassinated in 1981. Gradually, the military—which had a secular orientation in its early days—began to witness a growing Islamist mood. Political Islam has grown in Bangladesh with the rise of piety in the general population, some of it driven by the Islamization of migrant labor to the Gulf states and to Southeast Asia. The latter has steadily reflected growth in observance of the Islamic faith in the aftermath of the war on terror’s many consequences. One should neither exaggerate this threat nor minimize it.

The relationship of the political Islamists, whose popular influence has grown since 2013, with the military is another factor that requires much more clarity. Given the dent in the fortunes of the Jamaat-e-Islami since the War Crimes Tribunal documented how the group was involved on the side of Pakistan during the liberation struggle, it is likely that this formation of political Islam has a threshold in terms of its legitimacy. However, one complicating factor is that the Hasina government relentlessly used the fear of “political Islam” as a bogeyman to obtain U.S. and Indian silent consent to the two elections in 2018 and 2024. If the interim government holds a fair election on schedule, this will allow Bangladeshi people to find out if political Islam is a dispensation they wish to vote for.

New Cold War

Far away from the captivating issues put forward by the students which led to the ouster of Sheikh Hasina are dangerous currents that are often not discussed during these exciting times. Bangladesh is the eighth-largest country in the world by population, and it has the second highest Gross Domestic Product in South Asia. The role it plays in the region and in the world is not to be discounted.

Over the course of the past decade, South Asia has faced significant challenges as the United States imposed a new cold war against China. Initially, India participated with the United States in the formations around the U.S. Indo-Pacific Strategy. But, since the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, India has begun to distance itself from this U.S. initiative and tried to put its own national agenda at the forefront. This meant that India did not condemn Russia but continued to buy Russian oil. At the same time, China had—through the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI)—built infrastructure in Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka, India’s neighbors.

It is perhaps not a coincidence that four governments in the region that had begun to collaborate with the BRI have fallen, and that their replacements in three of them are eager for better ties with the United States. This includes Shehbaz Sharif, who came to power in Pakistan in April 2022 with the ouster of Imran Khan (now in prison), Ranil Wickremesinghe, who briefly came to power in Sri Lanka in July 2022 after setting aside a mass uprising that had other ideas than the installation of a party with only one member in parliament (Wickremesinghe himself), and KP Sharma Oli, who came to power in July 2024 in Nepal after a parliamentary shuffle that removed the Maoists from power.

What role the removal of Sheikh Hasina will play in the calculations in the region can only be gauged after elections are held under the interim government. But there is little doubt that these decisions in Dhaka are not without their regional and global implications.

The students rely upon the power of the mass demonstrations for their legitimacy. What they do not have is an agenda for Bangladesh, which is why the old neoliberal technocrats are already swimming like sharks around the interim government. In their ranks are those who favor the BNP and the Islamists. What role they will play is yet to be seen.

If the student committee now formed a bloc with the trade unions, particularly the garment worker unions, there is the possibility that they might indeed form the opening for building a new democratic and people-centered Bangladesh. If they are unable to build this historical bloc, they may be pushed to the side, just like the students and workers in Egypt, and they might have to surrender their efforts to the military and an elite that has merely changed its jersey.


This article was produced by Globetrotter.


ZNetwork is funded solely through the generosity of its readers.Donate


Vijay Prashad is an Indian historian, editor, and journalist. He is a writing fellow and chief correspondent at Globetrotter. He is an editor of LeftWord Books and the director of Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research. He is a senior non-resident fellow at Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies, Renmin University of China. He has written more than 20 books, including The Darker Nations and The Poorer Nations. His latest books are Struggle Makes Us Human: Learning from Movements for Socialism and (with Noam Chomsky) The Withdrawal: Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan, and the Fragility of U.S. Power. Tings Chak is the art director and a researcher at Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research and lead author of the study “Serve the People: The Eradication of Extreme Poverty in China.” She is also a member of Dongsheng, an international collective of researchers interested in Chinese politics and society.

Muhammad Yunus: Bangladesh's 'banker to the poor'

Dhaka (AFP) – Nobel-winning microfinance pioneer Muhammad Yunus will helm Bangladesh's interim government after the ouster of premier Sheikh Hasina, who had hounded him in speeches and through the courts.


Issued on: 08/08/2024 - 

Bangladeshi microfinance pioneer Muhammad Yunus was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006 

ANDREAS SOLARO / AFP/File

The 84-year-old, known as the "banker to the poorest of the poor", was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006 for his work loaning small cash sums to rural women, allowing them to invest in farm tools or business equipment and boost their earnings.

Grameen Bank, the microfinance lender he founded, was lauded for helping unleash breakneck economic growth in Bangladesh and its work has since been copied by scores of developing countries.

"Human beings are not born to suffer the misery of hunger and poverty," Yunus said during his Nobel lecture, daring his audience to imagine a world where deprivation was confined to history museums.

But his public profile in Bangladesh earned him the hostility of Hasina, who once accused him of "sucking blood" from the poor.

Hasina's 15-year tenure was characterised by a growing intolerance of dissent before her hurried resignation and departure from Bangladesh on Monday and Yunus's popularity had marked him as a potential rival.

Yunus announced plans in 2007 to set up his own "Citizen Power" party to end Bangladesh's confrontational political culture, which has been punctuated by instability and periods of military rule.

He abandoned those ambitions within months but the enmity aroused by his challenge to the ruling elite has persisted.

Yunus was hit with more than 100 criminal cases and a smear campaign by a state-led Islamic agency that accused him of promoting homosexuality.

Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus (C) is escorted by Emirati security personnel as he walks at the Dubai International Airport before boarding his flight to Dhaka, in Dubai on August 8, 2024 © Luis TATO / AFP

The government unceremoniously forced him out of Grameen Bank in 2011 -- a decision fought by Yunus but upheld by Bangladesh's top court.

He and three colleagues from one of the companies he founded were sentenced in January to jail terms of six months by a Dhaka labour court that found they had illegally failed to create a workers' welfare fund. However, they were immediately released on bail pending appeal.

All four had denied the charges and, with courts accused of rubber-stamping decisions by Hasina's government, the case was criticised as politically motivated by watchdogs including Amnesty International.

A Dhaka court acquitted him on appeal on Wednesday.

'Poverty was all around me'

Student leaders, whose protest campaign culminated in Hasina's ouster, met the military and President Mohammed Shahabuddin late on Tuesday and the decision was made to "form an interim government with... Yunus as its chief", Shahabuddin's office announced.

"Be calm and get ready to build the country," Yunus said before beginning his journey back to Bangladesh on Thursday, calling for "free elections" within months.

"If we take the path of violence everything will be destroyed," he said.

Yunus was born into a well-to-do family -- his father was a successful goldsmith -- in the coastal city of Chittagong in 1940.

He credits his mother, who offered help to anyone in need who knocked on their door, as his biggest influence.

Yunus won a Fulbright scholarship to study in the United States and returned soon after Bangladesh won its independence from Pakistan in a brutal 1971 war.

He was chosen to head Chittagong University's economics department when he returned but the young country was struggling through a severe famine and he felt compelled to take practical action.

"Poverty was all around me, and I could not turn away from it," he said in 2006.

"I found it difficult to teach elegant theories of economics in the university classroom... I wanted to do something immediate to help people around me."

He founded Grameen Bank in 1983 after years of experimenting with ways to provide credit for people too poor to qualify for traditional bank loans.

The institution now has more than nine million clients on its books, according to its most recent annual report in 2020, and more than 97 percent of its borrowers are women.

Yunus has won numerous high honours for his life's work, including a US Presidential Medal of Freedom awarded by Barack Obama.

He is expected to be sworn in to office as chief adviser, leading the interim government, on Thursday.

© 2024 AFP

YOUTH REVOLT!

How Bangladesh student protests brought in a new leader


By AFP
August 8, 2024

A garment store burns in the Bangladeshi capital Dhaka on August 4, after weeks of deadly anti-governmnet protests - Copyright AFP Abu SUFIAN JEWEL

A student-led uprising in Bangladesh against government hiring rules culminated this week in the prime minister fleeing, with Nobel peace prize winner Muhammad Yunus set to lead a caretaker government.

At least 450 people were killed in more than a month of deadly protests that ended the autocratic rule of 76-year-old prime minister Sheikh Hasina.

Here are five key dates explaining how the protests toppled the government in the South Asian nation of about 170 million people.



– July 1: Blockades begin –



University students build barricades blocking roads and railway lines to demand reforms to a quota system for sought-after public sector jobs.

They say the scheme is used to stack the civil service with loyalists of Hasina’s ruling Awami League.

Hasina, who won a fifth term as prime minister in January after a vote without genuine opposition, says the students are “wasting their time”.



– July 16: Violence intensifies –



Six people are killed in clashes, the first recorded deaths in the protests, a day after bitter violence when protesters and pro-government supporters fought in Dhaka with sticks and hurled bricks at each other.

Hasina’s government orders the nationwide closure of schools and universities.



– July 18: Hasina rebuffed –



Students reject an olive branch from Hasina, a day after she appeals for calm and vows that every “murder” in the protests would be punished.

Protesters chant “down with the dictator” and torch the headquarters of state broadcaster Bangladesh Television and dozens of other government buildings.

Clashes escalate despite a round-the-clock curfew, the deployment of soldiers and an internet blackout.

Days later, the Supreme Court rules the decision to reintroduce job quotas was illegal.

But its verdict falls short of protesters’ demands to entirely abolish reserved jobs for children of “freedom fighters” from Bangladesh’s 1971 independence war against Pakistan.



– August 5: Hasina toppled –



Hasina flees Dhaka by helicopter as thousands of protesters storm her palace, with millions on the streets celebrating, some dancing on the roof of armoured cars and tanks.

Bangladesh army chief General Waker-Uz-Zaman announces in a broadcast on state television that Hasina had resigned and the military would form an interim government.



– August 8: Yunus to lead –



Nobel peace prize winner Yunus, 84, flies to Dhaka to lead a caretaker government.

He is expected to be sworn in later in the day, to begin what the army chief has vowed will be a “beautiful democratic process”.

Families wait as some political prisoners freed in Bangladesh


ByAFP
August 6, 2024

Bangladesh's ousted prime minster Sheikh Hasina fled the country by helicopter on Monday, ending 15 years of autocratic rule - Copyright AFP Munir UZ ZAMAN

Families of political prisoners secretly jailed in Bangladesh under the autocratic rule of ousted premier Sheikh Hasina waited desperately Tuesday for news of their relatives, as some of those missing were released.

“We need answers,” said Sanjida Islam Tulee, a coordinator of Mayer Daak, meaning “The Call of the Mothers”, a group campaigning for the release of people detained by Hasina’s security forces.

Rights groups accused Hasina’s security forces of abducting and disappearing some 600 people — including many from the main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party and the banned Jamaat-e-Islami, the country’s largest Islamist party.

Tulee told AFP that at least 20 families gathered outside a military intelligence force building in a northern Dhaka neighbourhood, waiting for news of their relatives.

Army chief General Waker-Uz-Zaman announced Monday that Hasina had resigned after weeks of deadly protests, and the military would form a caretaker government.

Hours later President Mohammed Shahabuddin — after a meeting with the army chief — said it had been decided to free all those arrested during the student protests, as well as key opposition leader Khaleda Zia.

Ex-prime minister Zia, 78, chairperson of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) is in poor health and was largely under house arrest after being sentenced to 17 years in prison for graft in 2018.

– ‘What happened to others?’ –

Among the most high profile of those released on Tuesday was opposition activist and lawyer Ahmad Bin Quasem, son of Mir Quasem Ali, the executed leader of Jamaat-e-Islami.

“He was released from secret detention this morning,” family friend and relative Masum Khalili told AFP. “He had a medical check-up, his condition is stable.”

Quasem, a British-educated barrister, was abducted — allegedly by security forces in plainclothes — in August 2016.

Security forces during Hasina’s rule were accused of detaining tens of thousands of opposition activists, killing hundreds in extrajudicial encounters, and disappearing their leaders and supporters.

Human Rights Watch last year said security forces had committed “over 600 enforced disappearances” since Hasina came to power in 2009, and nearly 100 remain unaccounted for.

Hasina’s government denied the allegations of disappearances and extrajudicial killings, saying some of those reported missing drowned in the Mediterranean while trying to reach Europe.

“We heard Ahmad Bin Quasem has been released,” Tulee said, “but what happened to others?”

Hundreds of Bangladeshi Hindus try to cross into India


By AFP
August 8, 2024

A cobbler reads a newspaper along a street in Dhaka days after prime minister Sheikh Hasina fled the country - Copyright AFP MUNIR UZ ZAMAN

Hundreds of Hindus in Bangladesh were gathered along the Indian border hoping to cross, security officials said Thursday, days after a student-led uprising toppled prime minister Sheikh Hasina.

Some businesses and homes owned by Hindus were attacked following Hasina’s ousting, and the group is seen by some in Muslim-majority Bangladesh as having been close to her.

“Several hundred Bangladeshi nationals, mostly Hindus, gathered at different points along India’s border with Bangladesh,” Amit Kumar Tyagi, India’s Border Security Force (BSF) deputy inspector general, told AFP.

More than 200 people were “standing close” to the frontier with India’s border in West Bengal state.

In the state’s Jalpaiguri district, more than 600 Bangladeshis gathered in no-man’s land, Tyagi added.

“As there is no fence here, BSF personnel formed a human shield to keep them at bay,” he said.

Officers fired a blank shot into the air to disperse crowds, he added.

Hasina, 76, who had been in power since 2009, quit on Monday after more than a month of deadly protests.

The security situation in Bangladesh has since dramatically improved but there have been reports of revenge attacks on her supporters and party officials.

The Bangladesh Hindu Buddhist Christian Unity Council said earlier this week that at least 10 Hindu temples were attacked by “miscreants” on Monday.

A hospital official, on condition of anonymity, told AFP that one man from the community was beaten to death in the country’s southern Bagerhat district.

In India, where Hasina is now taking shelter, foreign minister S. Jaishankar said Tuesday his government was “monitoring the situation” with regard to minorities.

Fact check: False claims fuel ethnic tensions in Bangladesh

Monir Ghaedi

DW

08/07/24

During recent protests in Bangladesh, old images of rape and violent attacks on Bangladeshi Hindus have resurfaced online. A DW fact check reveals the truth behind these viral claims.

After the ouster of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, protesters attacked and vandalized several businesses, government buildings and cultural centers

Image: Rajib Dhar/AP/dpa/picture alliance

Bangladesh has plunged into chaos following the ouster of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on August 5, which came after weeks of riots.

Initially peaceful protests by students escalated into a broader movement demanding an end to Hasina's increasingly authoritarian leadership.

After her resignation, crowds stormed the prime minister's palace, vandalizing it along with other state-owned buildings and homes of members of the governing Awami League party.

According to Indian and local media, attacks on houses, places of worship and businesses belonging to religious minorities took place across the country. Hindu temples were targeted in several cities, including Natore, Dhaka, Patuakhali, and Jessore. In response, several students and clerics reportedly gathered in front of the temples to protect them from mob violence.

Like its neighbor India, Bangladesh has a history of religious tensions between its Hindu and Muslim communities. In recent years, the Bangladeshi Hindu minority, which makes up 8% of the population, has been targeted by violent mobs several times. However, many reports about the attacks on Hindu temples and communities by Bangladeshi protesters were not true.

DW Fact Check has investigated a few viral cases.

Hindu cricketer's house 'set on fire'

Claim: "Bangladeshi Hindu cricketer Liton Das' house has been set on fire"

A post on X(formerly Twitter) alleged that the house of Liton Das, a famous Bangladeshi Hindu cricketer, had been set on fire, sharing a collage of two pictures as evidence.

In one image a young man can be seen sitting next to a Hindu place of worship and the other image shows a burning house. More than a million users have seen the post. The collage was also shared by numerous other accounts with similar claims.

Rioters attacked several houses and businesses belonging to ruling party members, including the ex-cricket player Mashrafe Mortaza. However, some users have falsely claimed the house in the picture belonged to Hindu cricketer Liton DasImage: X

DW fact check: False

The man in the picture is indeed Liton Das, and a reverse image search shows that the image was taken from his official account. However, the burning mansion is not his home. A reverse search of that image leads to media reports about former Bangladesh cricket team captain Mashrafe Mortaza's house being set on fire by protesters.

DW also geolocated the house and confirmed it belonged to Mortaza, who became a target due to his political activities and close alliance with Hasina's Awami League party. The Muslim sportsman was a member of parliament, having won a seat for the second consecutive time as an Awami League candidate during the general elections held in Bangladesh earlier this year.

Images from Google Street View confirm that the burning house belongs to Mashrafe MortazaImage: Google 2024

Claims about rape, sexual harassment of Hindu women

There are many claims circulating on various social media platforms about sexual violence against women from the Hindu minority in Bangladesh. Two have been shared multiple times and viewed thousands of times. But some are old, and some have been proven to be earlier events presented out of context, like this case.

Claim: A video shows Muslim men waving a Hindu woman's underwear

The post on X says, "Look carefully at these Bangladeshi Muslims: Hindu girls' bras were removed and then they were raped. Now he is roaming the streets with that bra shamelessly and presenting proof of his manhood." As of publication, the post had about 30,000 views.

DW fact check: False

The 23-second video shows protesters storming the prime minister's official residence. Many pictures and videos have been published online showing rioters looting Hasina's belongings, including her clothes and underwear since she fled the country. In the last seconds of the video, a building with red-brown walls is visible, resembling Ganabhaban, the official residence of the Bangladeshi prime minister.

A comparison of the building in the video and images of Ganabhaban from agency footage shows that the building is indeed the official residence of the former prime minister. In the photo below, the palm trees and window shapes match those seen in the last seconds of the video.

The location where the protester is seen holding women's undergarments corresponds to photos of people storming the prime minister's palace in Dhaka, as published by news agenciesImage: Mohammad Ponir Hossain/REUTERS

Another post on X shares a screenshot of a Telegram post with a tilted picture of a woman being restrained, accompanied by Bengali text threatening Hindus and encouraging violence to drive them back to India.

Claim: A Hindu woman was sexually assaulted and gang-raped by a group of Muslim men at the University of Dhaka.

This post (warning: extreme, graphic violence) was published on August 2, three days before Hasina fled the country. But it has been increasingly shared by numerous other accounts in recent days, to date garnering more than 30,000 views.

The caption reads: "The so-called Jamaat-e-Islami quota protesters leaked a video of the gang rape of a Hindu girl to the Islamic army group. If Hasina's government falls, they have threatened to rape all Hindu girls out of their homes."

DW fact check: False

A reverse image search of that same screenshot has been shared in past years with claims of rape and sexual abuse, but from different regions. For example, it was attributed to a gang rape in the Indian province of Manipur in 2023, claiming to show Hindu men kidnapping and gang-raping a Christian girl. In 2021, it went viral in Indonesia, claiming to show an Indonesian migrant worker woman tortured and raped by five Bangladeshi citizens.

The Indian fact-checking platform Boom traced the video back to its origin in East Bengaluru's Ramamurthy Nagar in May 2021, where police arrested 12 Bangladeshi nationals, including three women, for the assault and rape of a 22-year-old.

AI images also used to stir emotions

The plethora of unverified social posts aimed at heightening ethnic tensions in Bangladesh haven't just used old or manipulated images and videos. Content generated by artificial intelligence has also played a role.

One AI-generated image is going viral on platforms like X and Facebook. It depicts a massive crowd gathered around a towering flagpole with the Bangladeshi flag waving at the top, under a hazy sky. The scene suggests a large-scale event or demonstration, symbolizing national pride and unity.

Modified versions of this AI-generated image have also been used to promote claims about ethnic violenceImage: X/PakForeverIA

The image exhibits typical signs of AI generation. The figures on the pole have disfigured, abnormal legs and the perspective is off, with the vertical pole and the background crowd view appearing unusual. Additionally, the proportions of the people on the pole and those below do not match. Several pieces of rope seem to float in the air without connection.

Modified versions of this graphic have also been used to promote claims of ethnic violence. For instance, one version includes the words "ALL EYES ON BANGLADESH, SAVE HINDUS." Another AI-generated photomaking the rounds shows a burning Hindu temple with the superimposed "ALL EYES ON BANGLADESH HINDUS" text. The foreground depicts numerous bodies lying on the ground, with blood and debris, creating a scene of violence and destruction.

Andreas Wisskirchen contributed to this report.

Monir Ghaedi Iranian author and reporter on current affairs

Why is the “Pro-Family” GOP Blocking Legislation that Would Help Lift Many Kids Out of Poverty?

by Justin Talbot Zorn – Mark Weisbrot

 August 8, 2024
Facebook

Twitter We’re the party of parents, we’re the party of kids.”

Republicans are using Vance’s kids and families rhetoric to convince voters to choose them in November, but they are failing when it comes to backing it up. In fact, they’re actively opposing important legislation to help children and parents.

On Thursday, Senate Republicans blocked a bill that would expand the Child Tax Credit — the very policy that Vance has championed and just accused Kamala Harris of opposing. Vance didn’t show up for the vote. Killing the proposal was a loss to roughly 16 million children in low-income working families, who would have benefited from about $700 in tax relief this year. Estimates from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities show that the proposal would have lifted at least 500,000 children above the poverty line and raised the family incomes for at least 5 million more poor children.

The Child Tax Credit isn’t just the most effective policy tool for pulling children out of poverty — it’s also one of the most popular legislative proposals in the country right now. The current bill had bipartisan support when it passed the House in a 357-70 vote in January. Polling showed that 69% of Americans supported the proposal, including 80% of Democrats, 59% of Republicans and 63% of independents. The legislation even included tax cuts for some businesses’ research and development efforts as well as investments that Republicans have long sought.

Influential business groups made it clear that they wanted the bill to pass. But Republican leadership was able to keep it from getting to a vote, even with a majority of the Senate in favor, because 60 votes are needed to break the filibuster.

The big reason that Republicans killed the Child Tax Credit measure appears to have little to do with policy. Iowa Sen. Charles E. Grassley said the quiet part out loud in January when he noted that it might “make Biden look good.”

Republicans also fought the bigger, temporary expansion of the Child Tax Credit that passed in 2021. That legislation was historic, and poverty among children was reduced by 44% to its lowest level on record while it was in effect. But during the last three years, the party demonstrated that it’s still committed to an economic program that puts tax cuts for large corporations above the well-being of children and families.

At the same time, the GOP has blocked legislation to build a universal pre-K system, enact paid family and medical leave, expand subsidies for child care and improve home care for older people and people with disabilities.

Republicans want to have it both ways, touting their pro-family agenda while blocking pro-family legislation.

Democrats shouldn’t just mock Vance’s “childless cat lady” comments or rely on legal cases, even felony convictions, to make their case in the closing months of this election campaign. The party‘s candidates need to make it clear who is standing up for children and parents.

Increasingly, Republicans are framing the parenting issue as an existential question. Focusing on policy for children and families, they argue, demonstrates a commitment to the future.

This is a debate Democrats should welcome — and one they can handily win.

This op-ed originally appeared in the Los Angeles Times.

Justin Talbot Zorn is senior advisor for policy and strategy at CEPR. Mark Weisbrod is co-director of CEPR.