31 July 2024: The March for Justice

A girl attempted to stop a police van from taking away another protester. In another widely circulated image, a boy stood between her and the police. These photographs became widely associated with the July Uprising.

The images were taken during the March for Justice on 31 July 2024. On the same day, more Facebook users changed their profile pictures to red in response to the government's declaration of national mourning the day before. People who had participated in the online campaign also joined demonstrations at court premises, university campuses and other public locations.

According to organisers of the march, participants gathered around noon at courthouses, campuses and public streets to call for justice for those who had been killed, arrested or detained during the protests, and to demand responses to the movement's nine-point demands. 

During several demonstrations, police used batons, sound grenades and tear gas to disperse protesters. The events of the day were widely viewed as a significant moment in the protests, with many observers describing them as marking a shift in the movement's momentum.

The red that came off the screen

The red profile picture had spread despite the Facebook shutdown. For 13 days Facebook remained inaccessible through regular means; many people continued to access it using VPNs and changed their profile pictures to red, in contrast to the government's declared national mourning. 

The online campaign became widely visible despite the restrictions. By 31 July, many of those who had participated online also joined demonstrations in person.

Later that afternoon, the government restored access to Facebook, YouTube and TikTok. The then Telecommunications State Minister Zunaid Ahmed Palak said that the restrictions had redirected internet traffic through VPNs and overseas networks, resulting in increased bandwidth use and reduced revenue. The government subsequently lifted the restrictions and restored access to the platforms.

The government's own voices betrayed the strain. At the opening of National Fisheries Week, of all occasions, Sheikh Hasina turned to the violence and said, "I don't know what my crime was." 

Protesters at the courthouses

There was a deliberate irony in the venue. A movement demanding justice took itself to the buildings where justice is dispensed, and found the police waiting at the gates. 

In Dhaka, students and teachers gathered from noon at the High Court's Mazar Gate; within half an hour the police were making arrests, and still the crowd held its ground for three hours, chanting. Professor Lutfor Rahman, convener of Dhaka University's "White Panel" of teachers, stood among them; inside the court, a column of lawyers marched too. 

When another group tried to reach the High Court, the police stopped them near the Shishu Academy and detained several, and the students regrouped at Doyel Chattar. 

In Chattogram, some 200 protesters pushed past the barricades into the court premises, where 50 to 60 pro-opposition lawyers declared themselves on the students' side. 

In Rajshahi, where police and border guards had sealed the courthouse since morning, students blockaded the Dhaka highway instead, and five were taken.

Where the courts were closed to them, the students marched anyway, and the pattern repeated city by city. 

In Barishal, the police broke up the march with batons; at least 10 people were hurt, four of them journalists, and here it was parents who had joined their children at the barricade. 

In Sylhet, at Subidbazar, the answer was sound grenades and tear gas. A coordinator, Foysal Hossain, put the injured at 20. 

In Gazipur, they barricaded the road at the deputy commissioner's office and charged the marchers at Bottola. 

The word from the campuses

At Jahangirnagar, 10 to 15 of the teachers from various departments walked out with their students. At ULAB, the faculty held a human chain, and Professor Salimullah Khan gave the day its sharpest sentence. The killings, he said, had been carried out with state backing by state forces and by the private auxiliaries who did their work; and only an international inquiry could credibly investigate them. 

Then he turned to the matter of trials. No one, he said, should believe a government could try killings it had itself committed: they themselves are the killers. He demanded an unconditional apology and the government's resignation. 

In Rajshahi, kept off the streets, the Nationalist Teachers' Forum marched on campus and pressed the government to accept the students' nine points.

The state's long day

The government's own voices betrayed the strain. At the opening of National Fisheries Week, of all occasions, Sheikh Hasina turned to the violence and said, "I don't know what my crime was." 

The country's image had been ruined, she said, and the only question left was who had gained from it. She left the "conspiracy" to the judgement of the people, and asked — as Salimullah Khan had, to the opposite purpose — for an international investigation. 

Across town at the party office on Bangabandhu Avenue, Obaidul Quader summoned former Chhatra League leaders and then addressed the cameras without letting them speak; they shouted him down as a bhua (imposter). 

And Harun-or-Rashid, the officer who had staged the dinner photograph the High Court called a mockery, was quietly moved out of the Detective Branch.

By evening a co-coordinator, Rifat Rashid, announced the next day's programme. It would be Remembering Our Heroes — a day of graffiti and portraits and the families of the dead telling their stories. And the country was preparing itself for August. 

Many protesters and activists declared that July would continue, dubbing the next day as 32 July. The country would indeed remember the heroes, and take the vow to ensure justice.