Statement in Solidarity with Student Protesters in Bangladesh

The Graduate Employees’ Organization (GEO) at UIUC, IFT/AFT Local 6300 stands in solidarity with student protesters in Bangladesh who are facing immense state-sanctioned police violence that has already killed hundreds of people and injured thousands more. The death toll is difficult to ascertain due to total censorship of local journalism. We strongly condemn statements such as that of Bangladesh’s Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina which accuses protesters of being “involved in terrorist activities” and being “traitors” to the nation.

Bangladesh is under a military-enforced curfew and communications blackout which began July 18th. Citizens have been shot and killed for being on the street. We stand with Bangladeshi students who are struggling to make contact with their loved ones back home. Students were protesting the discriminatory quota system for government jobs, among the most lucrative and stable forms of employment in the country, which reserves up to 30% of seats for the descendants of veterans of the 1971 Independence War. The overwhelming majority of these veteran families have been historically affiliated with Sheikh Hasina’s ruling Awami League which led the 1971 Independence movement. We encourage GEO members to read this Toronto Star article for a briefing on the background to the ongoing violence. On Sunday, July 21st, Bangladesh’s high court rolled back much of the government quota system, but there has been little justice for those killed and disappeared by military and police forces and no relief in the nationwide lockdown.

We affirm the rights that Bangladeshi students have to safely and freely criticize their government. As a graduate student labor union, the repression of this movement is alarming and tied to our struggles in this country as well. The U.S. government has this week given five prison vans to the Bangladesh prison system. We encourage Bangladeshi GEO members affected by this ongoing violence to reach out to the GEO’s Solidarity Committee should they need any support from the union.