🇧🇩 Bangladesh
July Mass Uprising Day is a Bangladeshi national holiday observed each August 5, commemorating the 2024 mass protest movement that forced the resignation of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina after 15 years in power. Originating as a student-led campaign against government job quotas, the movement grew into a nationwide call for her removal.
On July Mass Uprising Day, Bangladesh marks a national public holiday with government offices and many businesses closed. Communities hold memorial ceremonies, processions, and gatherings, especially in Dhaka, honoring those involved in the 2024 movement. Political parties and student organizations often organize their own rallies and tributes around the date. Participants and protesters informally call the day '36 July,' a reference to the extended timeline of events that culminated in Sheikh Hasina's departure. The observance anchors a wider period of remembrance activities held in the days leading up to August 5.
The holiday marks the culmination of weeks of unrest in mid-2024, when a student-led campaign against government job quotas escalated into a broader movement demanding Sheikh Hasina's resignation after violent crackdowns on demonstrators. On August 5, 2024, mass marches converged on Dhaka, and Hasina resigned and fled to India with her sister, ending her Awami League party's 15-year hold on power. Bangladesh's government later classified the anniversary as a national day and, through an official gazette notification in July 2025, established it as a Category A public holiday, formally embedding the uprising's outcome into the country's civic calendar.
The government body overseeing commemorations for the 2024 uprising was placed under the ministry responsible for Bangladesh's 1971 Liberation War, linking the two movements symbolically.
Some commentators have compared July Mass Uprising Day to Bangladesh's Independence Day (March 26) and Victory Day (December 16), which commemorate the 1971 Liberation War, though the new holiday marks a separate, contemporary political turning point rather than the founding of the state itself.
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