Nation marks two years since July Uprising

Today marks the second anniversary of the July Mass Uprising, the movement that ended Sheikh Hasina’s nearly fifteen-year rule and is now widely remembered, in the popular phrase that emerged from the protests, as the country’s “second independence.”

The uprising did not start as a movement to topple a government. In its early days, it was a student-led campaign against the quota system in government jobs, which reserved a large share of civil service positions for descendants of 1971 freedom fighters and other groups.

What began as demonstrations on university campuses turned into a national reckoning after the state responded with escalating force.

As police and ruling-party-affiliated student wings moved against demonstrators, the death toll climbed and public anger hardened into a broader demand: the end of Hasina’s government.

A pivotal moment came on 16 July, when Abu Sayed, a student at Begum Rokeya University in Rangpur, was shot dead by police while standing with his arms outstretched, refusing to retreat.

The image of his killing spread rapidly and is widely credited with transforming a quota-reform protest into a mass uprising against authoritarian rule.

In the days that followed, reports of attacks by ruling-party activists and allegations of gunfire from helicopters at several campuses, including Chittagong, Jahangirnagar and Shahjalal University of Science
and Technology, intensified the unrest rather than suppressing it.

By early August, the movement had widened further. Coordinators detained by the Detective Branch were released on 1 August; a mass gathering filled the Central Shaheed Minar on 3 August; and a nationwide non-cooperation campaign began on 4 August.

On 5 August, crowds entered the Prime Minister’s residence, Ganabhaban, and the Jatiya Sangsad Bhaban as Hasina resigned and left the country. The Army chief subsequently announced the formation of an interim government.

In the popular telling of the uprising’s timeline, protesters symbolically extended the calendar: 1 August became “32 July,” 4 August “35 July,” and 5 August — the day the government fell — was named “36 July,” now used as shorthand for the uprising’s climax.

According to a United Nations human rights office assessment, as many as 1,400 people may have been killed between mid-July and mid-August 2025 during the unrest, a toll that has made the uprising one of the deadliest periods of political violence in Bangladesh’s recent history.

This figure has not been independently verified by all parties, and Bangladeshi authorities have cited differing figures in various contexts, so it should be treated as an estimate rather than a confirmed final count.

This year’s commemorations
Two years on, the anniversary has become a season of competing but overlapping political programming, with major parties each marking the uprising in their own way.

The Jatiya Nagorik Party (NCP), formed by former protest coordinators including Nahid Islam and Asif Mahmud, announced a “36 days, 36 programmes” campaign running from 1 July to 5 August. Its plans reportedly include tributes at the Rayerbazar mass grave site, nationwide graffiti and wall-art initiatives, a memorial football tournament, prayers at martyrs’ graves on 16 July, a “coffin procession” demanding justice on 17 July, and victory celebrations with families of the martyred and injured on 5 August.

The BNP has also unveiled a month-long schedule, including a discussion event at the Bangabandhu International Conference Centre on 1 July involving victims’ families and political parties, district-level blood donation drives organised by its doctors’ wing on 3 July, football tournaments by its Dhaka metropolitan units on 5 July, a seminar with families of victims of enforced disappearance with the Mayer Daak (Mother’s Call) organisation on 9 July, and cultural programmes by its affiliate JASAS on 11 July.

Student and campus-based organisations, including the Anti-Discrimination Student Movement, have called for observances such as “Shaheed Abu Sayed Day” on 16 July and a “Private University Resistance Day” on 18 July, alongside documentary screenings and graffiti exhibitions at universities including Dhaka University, Jahangirnagar, Rajshahi and Chittagong.

Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami on Tuesday announced its own schedule, spanning roughly five weeks of activity, alongside three formal demands placed before the government.

Secretary General Mia Golam Parwar unveiled the plans at a press conference at the Jatiya Press Club. He said party leaders would visit the families of those martyred, injured and permanently disabled during the uprising — in Dhaka from 2–9 July, and across the rest of the country from 18–31 July — while also holding remembrance events, discussion meetings and special prayers at sites associated with the movement.

Jamaat’s two Dhaka metropolitan units will hold separate discussion sessions on 16 July, coinciding with the anniversary of Abu Sayed’s death, according to multiple parties’ programming.

For August, Parwar outlined processions in cities, districts and upazilas nationwide on 1 August, special programmes by labour organisations from 2–4 August, and culminating events on 5 August — observed as July Mass Uprising Day — when the 11-party alliance Jamaat leads will hold rallies and processions in Dhaka and at district and upazila headquarters across the country.

He added that the party’s women’s wing, student organisations and various July fighters’ forums would run parallel activities throughout.

Alongside the calendar, Jamaat pressed three demands: speeding up the trial of those responsible for killings and crimes against humanity committed during the uprising; ensuring justice in the killing of Sharif Osman Hadi; and convening a session of the Reform Council to implement the July Charter and the mandate expressed through the recent referendum.