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Family and friends are normally just a phone call away, but this isn’t the case for the Bangladeshi community in Saskatchewan.
The Bangladeshi government has suspended Internet access amidst university students protesting over job security this week.
Thousand of students have flooded the streets in the country demanding an end to a quota system that reserves up to 30 per cent of high-paying government jobs for relatives of veterans who fought for Bangladesh’s independence in 1971.
Mashfiq Rahman still has family back home, and he’s worried for them.
“… they’re hearing bullet fires and all sorts of commotion outside,” he said.
It’s being reported that over 100 people are dead in the protests. Internet access has been suspended since Thursday.
“There has been zero Internet communication from the country,” Rahman said at the Regina gathering this week.
“We couldn’t even communicate with our family members. We have no update on what’s going on. We’re just condemning the government action and we’re showing our solidarity with the peaceful protest of the student body there.”
If Rahman could reach his family, he said he has only one message.
“I would like to tell them to be safe,” he said. “It’s our number one priority.”
A large group of Regina’s Bangladeshi community gathered on Thursday at the Legislative Building to show solidarity and raise awareness.
“One of our main reasons for the visibility is for the international community to know what’s happening in Bangladesh,” Rahman said.
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Signs at the Regina gathering on Thursday. (Daniel Reech/980 CJME)
Mustafa Samadi is also concerned for his family.
“My nieces and nephews, they’re on the street trying to fight,” Samadi said. “Hopefully they’re still safe but a lot of people that I know are not — they’re injured.”
Samadi said he hasn’t heard from his family in quite some time.
“What we’ve heard is the Internet back there is shut off and not working,” he said. “We can’t communicate with each other.”
Samadi feels helpless unable to get in contact with his family in Bangladesh and said he was doing his part to raise awareness about the issue.
“Being abroad here what can we do?” he said. “We can raise our voice, we can try to catch the attention of the media here, we want to spread the message that what’s happening back there is not right.
“We want everyone’s attention and good wishes and international pressure from international political parties. We want to do as much as we can to create awareness that this is not how it should be.”
– with files from 980 CJME’S Daniel Reech
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