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full screen Protesters celebrate outside the parliament in Dhaka after the Prime Minister of Bangladesh resigned on Monday. Photo: Rajib Dhar/AP/TT
After the unrest in Bangladesh, where protesters demanded the resignation of the prime minister for weeks and finally got their way, there is now a new demand: The transitional government must be led by peace prize winner Muhammad Yunus.
– We have decided that a transitional government should be formed and led by the well-known Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus, says the leader of the group that started the protests in a recorded video.
Shortly after the news reached the world that Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina had fled the country in a helicopter and announced her resignation, the country’s army chief appeared. In a television broadcast, he said he would take over the governance of Bangladesh with a military-led transitional government, which the students do not want, the BBC reports.
The bloody protests in Bangladesh have been going on for several weeks and at least 360 people have been killed and hundreds have been injured.
The protests have been about the country’s system of quotas for posts in the state administration, which favors groups allied with Hasina. The protests are also considered to be about corruption and a lack of democracy.
The authorities have tried to curb the unrest by, among other things, introducing curfews.
During Hasina’s 15 years at the helm, Bangladesh’s economy has seen a boost but the country has also taken a more authoritarian approach.