Bangladesh minister defends gov’t response to protests amid calls for probe

Bangladesh’s minister of state for information and broadcasting has defended the government’s handling of mass protests, as United Nations experts called for an independent investigation into the government’s deadly crackdown on demonstrators.

In an exclusive interview with Al Jazeera on Thursday, Mohammad Arafat said the country’s security forces had done everything “to bring back the peace” amid the student protests.

He accused “third-party” actors, including “extremists and terrorists”, of fuelling the unrest.

“We’re not referring to the students [as] the terrorists and anarchists. It is the third party, those who intruded into this movement and started doing all this,” Arafat said on Talk to Al Jazeera.

“We tried our best to de-escalate the tension,” he said, adding that “some people are trying to add fuel to the fire, are trying to create a situation where they can take advantage … and topple the government”.

Thousands of Bangladeshi students took to the streets earlier this month to demand reforms to the South Asian country’s quota system, which allocates 30 percent of government jobs to the descendants of veterans who fought for Bangladesh in the 1971 war.

More than 150 student protesters have been killed and thousands have been arrested in the crackdown on the demonstrations, according to local media, fuelling tensions across the nation of more than 170 million people.

The protests turned violent on July 15 after members of the Bangladesh Chhatra League (BCL) – the student wing of the country’s ruling party – allegedly attacked the protesters.

Police then cracked down on the demonstrations and imposed a curfew. Students were asked to vacate universities, which were shut down; businesses were shuttered, and internet access was disrupted nationwide.

The Bangladeshi government has come under international scrutiny for its handling of the protests.

On Thursday, United Nations Human Rights Chief Volker Turk called for “an impartial, independent and transparent investigation into all alleged human rights violations” that occurred during the crackdown.

“We understand that many people were subjected to violent attacks by groups reportedly affiliated with the Government, and no effort was made to protect them,” Turk said.

In a separate statement, a group of UN experts also called for an independent probe into what they described as the government’s “violent crackdown on protesters”.

“The government is blaming other people, others are blaming the government; we need a full impartial investigation,” one of the experts, Irene Khan, the UN special rapporteur on freedom of expression and opinion, told Al Jazeera.

“But since there is no trust in the government, it has to be done with the international community,” Khan said on Thursday.

“We are calling on the government to invite the UN to conduct such an investigation to find out what went wrong, to take responsibility, and to hold the perpetrators to account.”

Official death toll not yet determined: Minister

In his interview with Talk to Al Jazeera, Arafat – the minister – denounced the protesters for storming the headquarters of state broadcaster Bangladesh Television (BTV) in the capital, Dhaka.

He said policemen guarding the building were outnumbered, and “because they were not permitted to open fire … those miscreants went inside the BTV, literally invaded, and set fire and started vandalising and destroying all the assets”.

Arafat said the government has yet to determine an official death toll from the unrest.

“When it comes to the casualties, injuries, and deaths, we’re not willing to discriminate between the police and general people, or the protesters, or the people from the supporters of the government,” he said.

The minister told Al Jazeera that an independent judicial committee would ensure a thorough investigation into what happened, “so that everyone responsible for any of these casualties can be brought to book.”

Arafat also dismissed any calls for Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to resign, adding she had only been “protecting the people”.

On Tuesday, protesters extended the suspension of their protests until Friday, but they were slated to meet on Thursday to discuss whether they would extend the pause further.

Among their key demands is a stipulation that Hasina must publicly apologise for the killings of students.

They have also called on Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan, Road Transport and Bridges Minister Obaidul Quader, Education Minister Mohibul Hasan Chowdhury Nowfel, and Law Minister Anisul Haque to resign from the cabinet and the party.