Bangladesh: 54 garment workers & teachers injured after police violently attack sleeping demonstrators from A-One factory & Tazreen Fashions, who were demanding compensation & unpaid wages
"‘We’re beaten mercilessly’", 8 December 2020
... Around 42 former Tazreen Fashions workers, more than 300 workers of A One BD Ltd, a few hundred independent Ebtedayee madrasa teachers, and aspiring primary school assistant teachers had been staging sit-ins... [at the Jatiya Press Club]
Yesterday at dawn however, according to the workers and teachers, police swooped on the demonstrators and attacked them with batons, tear gas shells and water cannons while they were asleep. Around 54 of the workers and teachers were injured in the attack, they said.
"They beat us like animals," said Nasima Akter, one of the Tazreen Fashions workers, who had been in front of the press club for the last 80 days demanding proper compensation, rehabilitation and treatment for their injuries sustained during the fire at the garment factory on November 24, 2012... [A]nother injured worker of Tazreen Fashions, said, "Our female workers were brutally beaten by male police members. They also groped them, ripped off their clothes, snatched their scarves, and called them 'whores'..." "Eighteen of the injured Tazreen workers had to take treatment from the Mitford Hospital,"...
Among the more than 300 workers of A One BD Ltd at Ashulia EPZ, who were sacked 11 months ago, 25 were also injured in the attack yesterday... A One BD LTD workers had joined the Tazreen Fashion workers on December 1, demanding arrears, other allowances and Eid bonuses...