DHAKA, Bangladesh Dozens of people were injured in Bangladesh’s capital when baton-wielding riot police clashed with stone-throwing protesters marching on government offices to demand electoral reforms, witnesses and a news report said.<\/p>\n
Police also used tear gas to scatter nearly 5,000 opposition demonstrators who tried to overrun barbed-wire barricades in Dhaka’s Dhanmondi residential district in efforts to march on election commission offices a few blocks away.<\/p>\n
At least 60 people, including five policemen, were injured in the violence, the United News of Bangladesh news agency said. The protesters also burned tires and set fire to a van, it said.<\/p>\n
The demonstration shut down businesses and disrupted traffic in the vicinity, residents said.<\/p>\n
The protesters defied a police ban on rallies and meetings in the area.<\/p>\n
Nearly 7,000 security forces were deployed around the election commission to enforce the ban and prevent protesters from laying siege to the office.<\/p>\n
“It’s our democratic right to stage such protests. Police can’t stop us,” opposition spokesman Tofayel Ahmed told The Associated Press.<\/p>\n
The protest was called by opposition leader Sheikh Hasina, who has threatened to boycott general elections scheduled for January unless reforms are undertaken.<\/p>\n
Hasina’s Awami League party and its 13 smaller allies have planned a series of protests this month against Prime Minister Khaleda Zia’s administration to press their demands, including a daylong nationwide strike on Sunday.<\/p>\n
Zia’s five-year term expires next month, and a nonparty caretaker government is to take over to hold elections in 90 days.<\/p>\n
The alliance accuses the chief election commissioner, M.A. Aziz, of favoring Zia’s government. It also says the election commission included fake voters in a recently compiled electoral roll. Aziz and the government have denied the allegations.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
DHAKA, Bangladesh Dozens of people were injured in Bangladesh’s capital when baton-wielding riot police clashed with stone-throwing protesters marching on government offices to demand electoral reforms, witnesses and a news report said. Police also used tear gas to scatter nearly 5,000 opposition demonstrators who tried to overrun barbed-wire barricades in Dhaka’s Dhanmondi residential district in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_s2mail":"","spay_email":""},"categories":[50],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bbrace.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bbrace.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bbrace.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bbrace.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bbrace.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=130"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bbrace.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bbrace.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=130"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bbrace.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=130"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bbrace.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=130"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}