Bangladesh to impose curfew, deploy army in face of protests, communications outages

Among the former was Hasina’s Awami League party, which called the protesters “razakar,” using a term describing independence-era collaborators.

International human rights groups criticised the suspension of services and the actions of security forces. The European Union expressed deep concern about the violence and loss of life.

“It is vital to avoid further violence and find a peaceful solution to the situation as quickly as possible, backed by the rule of law and democratic freedoms,” he said in a statement.

Neighbouring India said the unrest was an internal matter for Bangladesh and that the 15,000 Indians in the country were safe. Indians studying in Bangladesh were returning by road.

Violence linked to the protests also broke out in distant London, home to a large Bangladeshi population, with police having to quell clashes between large groups of men in the east of the British capital.

Telecommunications disrupted, websites hacked

July 19 began with the internet and overseas phone calls paralyzed, while the websites of several Bangladeshi newspapers were not updated and social media was also down.

Some voice calls were possible, but there was no mobile data or broadband, a Reuters reporter said. Not even text messages were being transmitted.

News television channels and state broadcaster BTV stopped broadcasting, although entertainment channels operated normally, he said.

Some news channels displayed a message blaming technical problems and promising to resume programming soon.

The official websites of the central bank, the Prime Minister’s Office and the police appear to have been hacked by a group calling itself “THE R3SISTANC3.”

“Operation HuntDown, stop the killing of students,” read identical messages posted on the sites, adding in crimson letters: “This is no longer a protest, it is now a war.”

Another message on the page read: “The government has shut down the Internet to silence us and hide their actions.”

The government did not comment on the communication problems.

On July 19, he had said he was willing to hold talks with the protesters, but they refused.

Many opposition party leaders, activists and student protesters were arrested, said Tarique Rahman, the exiled interim president of the main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party. Reuters could not confirm the arrests.