Bangladesh's Student Protests Against Quota System, Explained

Welcome back to World Brief, where we’re looking at Bangladesh’s student protests, the future of U.S.-China nuclear talks, and a win for LGBTQ+ rights in South Korea.

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Bangladesh has been grappling with some of its most violent unrest in years as tens of thousands of people participate in university student-led demonstrations against a decades-old quota employment system for government positions.

The protests, which first erupted on July 1, escalated further this week as protesters clashed with police and counter-protesters in confrontations that sometimes turned deadly. As of Thursday, as many as 25 people had been killed, and hundreds more are estimated to have been injured.

The source of the unrest is a contentious quota hiring system established in 1972, when Bangladesh was reeling from war and had just declared its independence from Pakistan. Under the quota system, 30 percent of highly coveted government jobs are reserved for the descendants of so-called freedom fighters who fought for Bangladesh in the war, while a percentage of other positions are allocated to additional select groups. In total, 56 percent of all positions have traditionally been reserved for members of various groups, including ethnic minorities, women, individuals with disabilities, and people from underrepresented districts.

Protesters want to dismantle this system because they say it is discriminatory and that hiring should be based on merit. Although the country has experienced remarkable economic growth in the decades since independence, it remains one of the world’s least developed countries, according to the United Nations, and its post-pandemic recovery has been rocky: Real GDP growth slowed to 5.8 percent in fiscal year 2023, down from 7.1 percent in the previous year, per the World Bank. Government jobs, seen as more stable and better paid than those in the private sector, are highly sought after, with more than 400,000 graduates competing for about 3,000 government jobs each year, Bloomberg reports.

Demonstrators also contend that the quota system favors Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and her supporters, since Hasina’s party, the Awami League, spearheaded the country’s independence drive. Critics “believe that the quota system is partisan and meant to ensure sufficient party support within the government, all while reducing the availability of merit-based jobs in a country with high youth unemployment,” Michael Kugelman wrote in FP’s South Asia Brief newsletter.

Hasina previously scrapped the system following a wave of protests in 2018, but a top Bangladeshi court restored it last month, sparking the current unrest. In an apparent attempt to appease protesters, Bangladesh’s Supreme Court last week suspended the quota system for a month and said it would make a final decision at the end of that period.

Hasina has defended the system and accused the country’s main opposition parties of fueling the unrest. She deployed paramilitary forces to help police quell the demonstrations in major cities, though she vowed to establish an investigatory judicial committee over the deaths and promised justice for students. Law Minister Anisul Huq said on Thursday that the government was ready to meet with student leaders to find a solution, though he said the final decision would be up to the Supreme Court.

But demonstrators—who have threatened to launch a “complete shutdown” of the country’s transportation systems, businesses, and schools if their demands aren’t met—seem intent on continuing the fight. “We want a permanent executive order from the government, saying that the quotas are abolished, except some quotas for the disabled and minorities,” Parvez Mosharraf, a student at Dhaka University, told Dawn last week. The opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party has backed the protesters’ call for a shutdown.

Dismantling the humanitarian pier. Around two months after the U.S. military installed a $230 million floating pier to send humanitarian aid into the beleaguered Gaza Strip, the operation is coming to an end. Washington will instead focus its humanitarian efforts on delivering aid to Gaza through the Port of Ashdod in Israel, U.S. officials said on Wednesday. “In the coming weeks, we expect that millions of pounds of aid will enter into Gaza via this new pathway,” said U.S. Navy Vice Adm. Brad Cooper, the deputy head of U.S. Central Command.

Israel has heavily restricted the entry of aid into Gaza, prompting the Biden administration—which was facing pressure to take more action to address the humanitarian crisis there—to build the pier as a means of rushing additional relief into the territory amid warnings of famine. Yet the operation was beset by a number of logistical, technical, and weather-related challenges, rendering it functional for only around 20 days. In total, 8,100 metric tons of aid reached Gaza through the pier.

Suspended nuclear talks. China has halted arms control and nuclear proliferation talks with the United States as a result of Washington’s continued arms sales to Taiwan, China’s Foreign Ministry announced on Wednesday. U.S. arms sales to the island “severely undermine China’s core interests and the mutual trust between China and the U.S.,” said Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian. Washington, in response, said Beijing’s decision was “unfortunate” and “undermines strategic stability.”

Washington is Taiwan’s biggest arms provider, although Republican presidential candidate and former U.S. President Donald Trump recently told Bloomberg Businessweek that the “immensely wealthy” island should pay more for its defense support. “We’re no different than an insurance company,” he said, yet “Taiwan doesn’t give us anything.”

Trump’s remarks “highlight a critical open question: What might Trump’s approach to Taiwan look like in a second term?” FP’s Lili Pike wrote this week. “The answer hinges on whether Trump’s own America First mentality would dominate over the agenda of the China hawks in his national security orbit who are staunch defenders of Taiwan.”

Landmark ruling. South Korea’s Supreme Court determined on Thursday that same-sex couples are eligible for spousal coverage under the country’s national health insurance, in a landmark ruling that was celebrated as a move in the right direction for LGBTQ+ rights in the country. Seoul still does not legally recognize same-sex marriages, although rights groups and activists hope this decision could lay the groundwork for future change.

The ruling is a “stepping stone for progress” for marriage equality, Horim Yi, an activist with the campaign group Marriage for All, told Reuters. “It’s going to be a very hopeful ruling for same-sex couples living in South Korea.”

Tens of thousands of Italians are in an uproar over a decision to rename Milan’s international airport after controversial former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi. Many of the country’s airports are named after famed Italians—including Leonardo da Vinci; Galileo Galilei; and two anti-Mafia prosecutors, Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino—but perhaps none who carry as politically divisive a legacy as Berlusconi, who was embroiled in numerous corruption and sex scandals before his death in 2023 at age 86. As of Wednesday, more than 160,000 people had signed a petition to block the designation.