Bangladesh Internet in ‘Total Shutdown’ Amid Student Protests and Dozens of Deaths: ‘Things Are Really Turning Bad’
variety.comNaman Ramachandran The internet has been shut down and mobile services severely disrupted in Bangladesh amid student protests that began earlier this week.
The disruptions do not appear to be connected to the global internet outage that is taking place on Friday. But, equally, it is not clear whether the government is attempting to silence critics and prevent organization of anti-regime protests or whether the outages are a consequence of ongoing violence and attacks on infrastructure.
The unrest centers on demands to end a quota system reserving up to 30% of government jobs for relatives of 1971 independence war veterans.
Protesters argue the system is discriminatory and instead seek a merit-based alternative. Associated Press says that there have been 28 deaths in the country during the protests, citing local media reports.
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