The United Arab Emirates said Saturday it arrested several Bangladeshi expatriates for protesting against their home government “in several streets across the UAE on Friday,” Emirates News Agency (WAM) reported.

UAE Attorney-General Dr. Hamad Saif al-Shamsi ordered an immediate investigation.

According to the statement, the suspects face charges for “gathering in a public place and protesting against their home government with the intent to incite unrest, obstruct the enforcement of laws and regulations, disrupt individual interests, cause harm and danger to others, violate their rights, disrupt traffic, and damage both public and private property.”

The protestors have also been accused of deliberately disrupting transportation, calling for and inciting the demonstrations, and recording and disseminating audiovisual footage of the protest online, all of which are criminal offences in the UAE.

“[The acts] constitute offences against state security and public order, and jeopardise the UAE’s interests,” the WAM statement added.

The UAE Attorney-General has directed the suspects to be referred to an expedited trial.

Situation in Bangladesh

Near-daily marches this month in Bangladesh have called for an end to a quota system that reserves more than half of civil service posts for specific groups, including children of veterans from the country’s 1971 liberation war against Pakistan.

Soldiers were patrolling Bangladeshi cities on Saturday to quell growing civil unrest sparked by student demonstrations, with riot police firing on protesters who defied a government curfew.

This week’s violence has killed at least 115 people so far, according to an AFP count of victims reported by police and hospitals, and poses a monumental challenge to Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s autocratic government after 15 years in office.

A government curfew went into effect at midnight and the premier’s office asked the military to deploy troops after police again failed to subdue widespread mayhem.

“The army has been deployed nationwide to control the law and order situation,” armed forces spokesman Shahdat Hossain told AFP.

Streets of the capital Dhaka were almost deserted at daybreak, with troops on foot and in armored personnel carriers patrolling the sprawling megacity of 20 million.