Penn State's Bangladesh Cultural Club, Bangladeshi Student Association, and their supporters gathered on the steps of Old Main Tuesday night to raise awareness about protests in Bangladesh, which led to almost 200 reported deaths and nearly 2,700 arrests.
On July 15th, Bangladeshi college students started to protest against a quota system — which was mostly scaled back on Sunday — where 30% of government jobs were reserved for children/grandchildren of freedom fighters who fought in the 1971 liberation war.
Despite Bangladesh's top court scaling back that quota system, supporters at Penn State's University Park campus gathered to hold lit candles, Bangladesh's flag, and signs reading: "our country is bleeding," "stop student killings," and "why armed forces on campus?"
"Today, I want to exercise my freedom of speech that I couldn't do for so many years, from my part in my own country in my mother tongue. What an irony, right? Now I have the right to speak my mind here in the United States, in a land where I'm not even a citizen, just a mere international student," said Nahian Siddique, a student organizer from Bangladesh.
"It has to stop; it has to stop. People are so beautiful like children, like you, like they are just alive and then they are dead. It's just too much, too much," said another Bangladeshi woman, who did not share her name.
Speakers during the event called for the removal of responsible parties from the government, and called for unity and solutions.
"We've been under the dictatorship for 16 years now, and we've all sort of managed to make our peace with it," said Ahmed Nirjhar Alam, who is also from Bangladesh. "I mean, you know, it was business as usual. Sheikh Hasina and the top officials were all criminals and murderers long before this started happening. We've all sort of made peace with it."
During the vigil, event attendees and organizers joined together in prayer and sang the Bangladeshi national anthem in commemoration.
