Three Bangladeshis sentenced to life, 53 others to 10 years in prison and one to 11 years for protesting against their government, state media say.
A court in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) has jailed 57 Bangladeshi nationals for staging protests in the Gulf country against their own government, according to the state media.
Three Bangladeshis were sentenced to life, 53 others to 10 years in prison and one to 11 years for “gathering and inciting riots” during protests on Friday, the official Emirati news agency WAM said on Monday, adding they would be deported after the completion of their prison terms.
A witness confirmed that the defendants organised large-scale marches in several streets of the UAE “in protest against decisions made by the Bangladeshi government”, it added.
Unauthorised protests are prohibited in the UAE. The country’s penal code also criminalises offending foreign states or jeopardising ties with them.
Protests led by students began earlier this month in Bangladesh after a court in the capital, Dhaka, last month reinstated a government quota system that reserved more than 50 percent of the civil services jobs. Students have been demanding that job quotas, which include 30 percent reserved for descendants of freedom fighters who participated in the 1971 war of independence, be abolished amid stagnant job growth and high rates of youth unemployment.
The government crackdown on the protests and attacks on sit-ins by groups linked to the governing party triggered nationwide unrest, posing the biggest challenge to Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, who was sworn in for her fourth term in January.
Monday saw a lull in the violence as the government imposed a curfew and deployed the army to prevent the violence from spreading.
The country’s Supreme Court scaled back the quota system on Sunday but the protesters are demanding action against officials responsible for the violence that reportedly killed 163 people. More than 500 people, including some opposition leaders, have been arrested in Dhaka, according to police.
Hasina has been accused of authoritarianism, human rights violations, and crackdowns on free speech and dissent in the past – charges her government denies.
The UAE, which is populated mostly by expatriates, has a large population of Bangladeshis, who form the third biggest expatriate group in the country, after Pakistanis and Indians, according to the UAE Ministry of Foreign Affairs.