Latest news with #studentprotests
Arab News
10 hours ago
- General
- Arab News
Bangladesh opens trial of ex-PM Hasina for crimes against humanity
DHAKA: Bangladeshi prosecutors on Sunday opened the trial of fugitive former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, who is charged with orchestrating last year's deadly crackdown on student-led protests. Peaceful demonstrations, triggered by the reinstatement of a quota system for the allocation of civil service positions, began in early July 2024 but two weeks later they were met with a communications blackout and a violent crackdown by security forces. In early August, as protesters defied a nationwide curfew, Hasina resigned and fled the country, ending 15 years in power of her Awami League party-led government. 'She unleashed various law enforcement and intelligence agencies against them (the protesting students) … They slaughtered the agitating students, injured them and committed crimes against humanity,' Mohammad Tajul Islam, chief prosecutor at Bangladesh's domestic International Crimes Tribunal, told the court in his opening speech. He charged the 77-year-old with 'incitement, aiding and abetting, involvement in the commission of the crimes of murder, attempted murder, torture and other inhumane acts as part of the widespread and systematic attacks on innocent unarmed students and the public.' The UN's human rights office concluded in February that between July 15 and Aug. 5, 2024, the former government and its security and intelligence apparatus, together with 'violent elements' linked to the Awami League, 'engaged systematically in serious human rights violations and abuses in a coordinated effort to suppress the protest movement.' It estimated that at least 1,400 people were killed during the protests, the majority by bullets from military rifles. ICT investigators have collected video footage, audio clips, records of helicopter and drone movements, as well as statements from victims of the crackdown as part of the probe. They also 'seized records of telephonic conversations of Sheikh Hasina, in which she repeatedly confirmed that she ordered all the state agencies to eliminate innocent civilians peacefully protesting for a fair demand, using helicopters, drones and APCs (armored personnel carriers),' Islam said. Sunday's hearing was broadcast live for the first in the ICT's history. 'The court accepted the charges against Sheikh Hasina, former Home Affairs Minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal and former police chief Chowdhury Abdullah Al-Mamun. There are five charges against them and the court accepted all five charges. We presented the charges through live broadcast before the nation,' Islam told reporters after the hearing. Al-Mamun is the only accused who has been detained while the ex-home minister is in hiding and Hasina remains in self-imposed exile in neighboring India. The next hearing is scheduled to take place on June 16. The tribunal ordered all three accused to be presented before the court. The International Crimes Tribunal was established by Hasina in 2010 to investigate crimes committed by the Pakistani army and its loyalists during Bangladesh's independence war in 1971. Over the years, it grew to be widely seen as the Hasina government's tool for eliminating political rivals.
Bloomberg
14 hours ago
- Business
- Bloomberg
Will the Class of 2025 Ever Get Over College?
This is Bloomberg Opinion Today, a US asset that generates tens or even hundreds of billions of dollars of economic value for Bloomberg Opinion's opinions. On Sundays, we look at the major themes of the week past and how they will define the week ahead. Sign up for the daily newsletter here. 'Looking back over a decade,' wrote F. Scott Fitzgerald, an indifferent student if there ever was one, 'one sees the ideal of a university become a myth, a vision, a meadow lark among the smoke stacks.' I'm wondering what image the class of 2025 will see in 2035 as they look back on their remarkably tumultuous undergraduate years. Will it be standing in defiance of administrators and politicians and police forces in a peaceful exercise of their First Amendment rights? Or standing in support of terrorists who murdered hundreds of people their age at a trance concert?
Wall Street Journal
3 days ago
- General
- Wall Street Journal
Protest Isn't What It Used to Be
The campus protests of the late 1960s and early '70s—known in one of my favorite euphemisms as 'student unrest'—were different from those of today. Anger about the Vietnam War was at their core. The stakes were personal. If the war didn't stop, many of the student protesters would themselves have to fight in it. Notice that the protests pretty much dried up once the protesters' butts were no longer on the line. Today's protests have an abstract quality. Most of those wearing kaffiyehs and chanting against 'genocide' in Gaza aren't Palestinians. They are trying to express their hatred of Israel and, by extension, of America. That Hamas slaughtered some 1,200 Jews, many women and children among them, doesn't put them off. There is a vicious yet hollow quality about these protests, which are unapologetic in their antisemitism and defiant in their bias against the West.
Arab News
24-05-2025
- Politics
- Arab News
Bangladesh interim govt calls for unity to stop ‘return of authoritarianism'
'Broader unity is essential to maintain national stability,' said the interim governmentDHAKA: Bangladesh's interim government, which took over after a mass uprising last year, warned on Saturday that unity was needed to 'prevent the return of authoritarianism.''Broader unity is essential to maintain national stability, organize free and fair elections, justice, and reform, and permanently prevent the return of authoritarianism in the country,' it said in a statement after a week of escalation during which rival parties protested on the streets of the capital South Asian nation of around 170 million people has been in political turmoil since ex-prime minister Sheikh Hasina was ousted by student-led protests in August 2024.
BBC News
20-05-2025
- Business
- BBC News
Cambridge University college to stop investing in arms companies
A college at a leading university has said it will no longer invest in arms companies following a number of student protests. King's College, part of the University of Cambridge, said its governing body had voted to "adopt a new responsible investment policy" to align with the values of its comes after pro-Palestine protesters staged demonstrations and set up encampments against the war in Gaza at the university last Swain, youth and student officer at the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, said it was a "massive victory". Student-led group Cambridge for Palestine has called on the university to divest from companies "complicit in the ethnic cleansing of Palestine".King's College's new financial investments will exclude companies that are involved in activities "generally recognised as illegal or contravening global norms, such as occupation", it said. It will also exclude companies which produce military and nuclear weapons, weapons restricted by international treaty, or companies that produce key or dedicated components of such policy builds on discussions about the relationship between the college's investments and its values, which were "prompted by the occupation of Ukraine and Palestinian territories".Gillian Tett, provost of King's College, said: "This is a positive result from a process that engaged voices from all areas of our community."I commend the members of the working group for their incredibly thoughtful engagement and deep commitment to work towards an approach that reflects the college's values and demonstrates our capacity to model transformation."The college said the changes could be in place by the end of the year. Ms Swain said: "This is a massive victory, and speaks to the incredible power and commitment of student campaigning, at King's College and across the country."If King's College, at the heart of Cambridge, can finally listen to its students and divest from the arms industry and companies complicit in the illegal occupation of Palestine, then every university can act to ensure they are on the right side of history." Follow Cambridgeshire news on BBC Sounds, Facebook, Instagram and X.
