Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 4.0
Dhaka · July 2024 · Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA)
জুলাই গণঅভ্যুত্থান
The July Revolution · 2024
Bangladesh · 1 July — 5 August 2024
The July Revolution
What began as a students' demand to reform government job quotas became a nationwide mass uprising. In thirty-six days it reached all eight divisions and all sixty-four districts — and ended a fifteen-year regime.
Chapter 01 — The Spark
In 2018, student protests had forced the government to abolish the quota system in first-class government jobs. On 5 June 2024, the High Court struck that abolition down — reinstating the 30% quota for descendants of 1971 freedom fighters, in a job market where hundreds of thousands of graduates chase a handful of civil-service posts each year.
Students returned to the streets on 1 July under a new banner: বৈষম্যবিরোধী ছাত্র আন্দোলন — Students Against Discrimination. Their demand was narrow and legal: reform the quota, keep merit. The state's answer — mockery, ruling-party muscle, and then bullets — transformed a policy dispute into a reckoning with fifteen years of authoritarian rule, rigged elections, enforced disappearances, and economic anger.
When the first protesters fell on 16 July, the movement stopped being about jobs. By early August its single demand was the fall of the government itself.
Chapter 02 — The Thirty-Six Days
Protesters refused to let July end until the regime did. 1 August became "32 July," and 5 August — the day the government fell — is remembered as ৩৬ জুলাই, the 36th of July.
Chapter 03 — Across the Country
Tap or click any division to see what happened there — flashpoints, key dates, and the people it lost. Pulsing markers show major incident sites.
Chapter 04 — In Memoriam
The UN human rights office estimates as many as 1,400 people were killed between 15 July and 5 August 2024 — roughly one in eight of them children. These are a few whose names the country will not forget.
— and hundreds more, in every division of the country. আমরা তোমাদের ভুলবো না।
Chapter 05 — The Registry
A searchable registry of July's martyrs — filter by name, division, phase of the uprising, or who they were. This registry is seeded with names verified in national and international reporting; the official government gazette records more than 800 martyrs, and the full toll may reach 1,400.
Showing 0 of 0 documented entries
No entries match this filter. জুলাই মনে রাখবে সবাইকে।
Chapter 06 — The Album
Freely-licensed photographs of the uprising from Wikimedia Commons — the streets, the crackdown, the walls, and the remembering. Filter by theme; tap any photograph to view it full size.
Photographs © their photographers, via Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Add your own by extending the ALBUM array in the source
Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 4.0
Chapter 07 — Voices
Chapter 08 — After the 36th
05 Aug 2024
Sheikh Hasina resigned and left for India by military helicopter as hundreds of thousands marched on Dhaka. Crowds poured into Ganabhaban, the Prime Minister's residence, ending 15 years of Awami League rule.
08 Aug 2024
Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus was sworn in as Chief Adviser of an interim government, with student leaders of the movement joining the advisory council.
Feb 2025
The UN human rights office found the crackdown involved systematic, coordinated violence — estimating up to 1,400 killed, most by security forces' gunfire, and citing possible crimes against humanity.
2024–2026
Bangladesh's International Crimes Tribunal opened cases against the ousted leadership and senior commanders over the July killings, with proceedings continuing against those charged.
Nationwide
July memorials, graffiti walls, and "36 July" murals now mark campuses and intersections across all 64 districts. The uprising's martyrs are officially gazetted and honoured.
Ongoing
The uprising's demands widened into a national conversation on constitutional, electoral, police, and institutional reform — the unfinished business of July.