Student protests point to deeper problems in Bangladesh

As protests over poor road conditions in Bangladesh subsided last week, student demonstrators and activists reported that a government crackdown on opposition increased. Tens of thousands of students staged nine days of protests in early August after a speeding bus on July 29 killed two young students in Dhaka, the country’s capital and home to 18 million people.

Police responded to the protesters with rubber bullets and tear gas, injuring more than 150 students and journalists. Human Rights Watch reported Bangladeshi police stood by while supporters of the ruling political party beat up protesters with machetes and sticks.

As the protests dwindled, the government warned of consequences for those involved. “We are in the process [of identifying] all those who spread rumors in the social media and incited violence,” Bangladeshi Home Affairs Minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal told The Guardian on Wednesday. “None will be spared, be they students, teachers, or political leaders.”

Mohammad Najmul Islam, a national cybercrime official, said authorities had identified approximately 1,200 social media accounts he claimed helped incite the protests and unrest.

Local media last week reported that authorities arrested 23 people, including the CEO of an online news service and a prominent photographer and activist, Shahidul Alam. Police arrested and reportedly tortured Alam after he appeared in an Al Jazeera interview about the protests where he was critical of Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, claiming she was using “brute force” to cling to power.

But bus drivers in Bangladesh said the situation is more complicated than that. Khurshid Alam, a 45-year-old driver, told Reuters he works 18-hour shifts and only earns about $11 a day—three times less than what a registered bus driver would earn in India. Alam and other drivers argued the government bears the responsibility to install traffic lights and build more pedestrian walkways: “Everybody has a guardian to take care of their interests, but we don’t.”

The government’s forceful response comes as Bangladesh prepares for its general elections in December. Political analysts said the protests reflect more than just frustration with road deaths. “It’s hard to imagine that the mere issue of traffic safety—important though it may be—could spark such a widespread and sustained period of dissent,” Michael Kugelman of the Washington-based Woodrow Wilson Center told Germany’s Deutsche Welle news agency. “The road safety issue is the straw that broke the camel’s back; these large protests were rooted in much deeper and complicated grievances.”

Ali Riaz, an Illinois State University professor, said the protests will have a lasting political effect, regardless of other outcomes: “Whatever happens to the movement in the coming days, however it ends, the younger generation has demonstrated that they can challenge the prevailing culture of fear.”

Rampant persecution in rebel-controlled regions of Ukraine

Persecution of various religious groups, including Pentecostals, Baptists, and Jehovah’s Witnesses, has continued under separatist, pro-Russian government leaders in parts of Ukraine since they seized control in 2014.

Authorities in recent months have raided and dispersed church services, confiscated religious literature, fined worshippers, and banned groups, justifying the acts by claiming the religious groups were unregistered and gathering illegally.

In February, the self-appointed government of the Luhansk People’s Republic instituted a law that discriminates against all non–Russian Orthodox religions, mandating registration of religious groups and literature and requiring a minimum size of 30 local adults to qualify, according to Forum 18. Only two religious groups, both Ukrainian Orthodox Moscow Patriarchate churches, gained reregistration by June 18.

“This law violates universal human rights, severely limits religious freedom, and threatens eastern Ukraine’s existing network of religious communities and organizations,” wrote Mykhailo Cherenkov, the executive field director of Mission Eurasia.

Cherenkov said the law also bans religious groups from leading activities in private residences and requires groups to submit detailed accounts of their activities to the government.

Religious communities fear a further crackdown once Saturday’s registration deadline passes. —Julia A. Seymour

Zimbabwean opposition leader Tendai Biti leaves magistrates court after being granted bail on Thursday. Associated Press/Photo by Tsvangirayi Mukwazhi

Zimbabwe’s post-election crackdown intensifies

Security forces and unidentified gunmen have attacked opposition party members since Zimbabwe’s disputed presidential election on July 30, Human Rights Watch reported.

Incumbent President Emmerson Mnangagwa emerged as the winner, and his ruling ZANU-PF party won a parliamentary majority. The opposing Movement for Democratic Change party disputed the outcome and filed a legal challenge last week calling for a new vote.

Since the election, small groups of soldiers have gone to bars and restaurants and beat up opposition supporters for not supporting Mnangagwa. Human Rights Watch said armed, masked men also broke into the houses of the opposition’s youth leader and another member of Parliament. Officials last week charged opposition leader Tendai Biti with fueling post-election violence.

In a joint statement, the country’s military and police both condemned the violence, and cautioned that “some of these individuals might be criminals masquerading as soldiers.” —O.O.

Zimbabwean opposition leader Tendai Biti leaves magistrates court after being granted bail on Thursday. Associated Press/Photo by Tsvangirayi Mukwazhi

Congo’s president backs down

Congolese President Joseph Kabila will not run in the turbulent country’s long-delayed presidential election, according to a statement released last Wednesday. A government spokesman said former Interior Minister Emmanuel Ramazani Shadary would run in December as the ruling coalition’s candidate.

Kabila has served as president of the Democratic Republic of the Congo since 2001 and was legally excluded from running again after his mandate expired in 2016. He disregarded the mandate’s expiration and maintained power under a constitutional clause that allows him to remain in office until the country elects a successor, which sparked violent and deadly protests.

But many fear his exit will not change much within his party. Kabila remains a moral authority for the country’s ruling Common Front for Congo coalition. Congo has yet to experience a peaceful transition of power since its independence in 1960. —O.O.

Zimbabwean opposition leader Tendai Biti leaves magistrates court after being granted bail on Thursday. Associated Press/Photo by Tsvangirayi Mukwazhi

Thai soccer players and coach awarded citizenship

Three players from the Wild Boar soccer team rescued from a Thailand cave in July and one of their coaches received Thai citizenship last week. The four, including 14-year-old Adul Sam-on, the team’s lone Christian member, received their national identification cards along with another teammate who wasn’t trapped in the cave.

As many as 3.5 million Thai residents, many of them from minority groups, don’t have citizenship and are unable to vote, buy land, work in certain professions, and travel freely. Nopparat Kanthawong, the team’s head coach, said he submitted documentation to help seven other Wild Boar players gain citizenship. —O.O.