Bangladesh is experiencing communication problems across the country amid student protests

Television news channels in Bangladesh were blacked out as violent student protests continued Friday against government job quotas that have killed nearly a dozen people this week.

There was fresh violence in some parts of the country on Friday and police used tear gas to disperse protesters, a witness said.

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s government was “forced” to call in the army late on Thursday to help “maintain order”, India said Economic Times the newspaper reported.

Although the protests were sparked by student anger against the controversial quota system, some analysts said tough economic conditions, including high inflation, rising unemployment and depleting foreign exchange reserves, were fueling the fire. Reuters mentionted.

The protests also opened old and sensitive political rifts between those who fought the 1971 Bangladesh war.

Authorities cut some mobile phone services on Thursday to try to quell the unrest, but unrest spread across the country on Friday morning, witnesses in Dhaka and New Delhi said.

Phone calls from overseas were mostly not connecting and internet calls could not be completed.

The websites of several Bangladesh-based newspapers were not updated on Friday morning and their social media handles were also inactive.

News TV channels and state broadcaster BTV was off air while entertainment channels continued to broadcast normally, a witness said.

Websites hacked

The streets of the capital Dhaka were deserted on Friday, which is a week-long holiday in the country.

There was little traffic and very few rickshaws on the streets and sparse crowds near a vegetable and fish market, he said, adding that a protest rally had been called at the main mosque around 08:00 GMT.

The official websites of Bangladesh’s central bank, the prime minister’s office and the police appeared to have been hacked by a group calling itself “THE R3SISTANC3”, which said: “It’s not a protest anymore, it’s a war now.”

The nationwide unrest, the largest since Hasina’s re-election earlier this year, has been fueled by high youth unemployment. Almost a fifth of the country’s 170 million people are out of work or education.

Hasina’s government had scrapped the quota system in 2018, but the top court reinstated it last month. The government appealed the verdict, and the Supreme Court stayed the High Court’s decision, pending a ruling on the government’s appeal on August 7.