2024 recap: The five most significant protests around the world

From the killing of scores of protestors over taxes in Kenya to the storming of Parliament in Bangladesh and Georgia, the world has seen its share of protests this year.

Citizens are angry with their governments, frustrated with crime and corruption, and feel unheard by those in authority, from the Western hemisphere to the East.

According to the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, there have been 258 significant anti-government protests around the world since 2017, with some of the biggest reported this year.

Here we look at the five most significant protests around the world in 2024.

39 Kenyans die over taxes

At least 39 people died and 361 were injured when Kenyan citizens protested steep tax increases contained in a finance bill in June.

Kenya’s Parliament was partially set ablaze when protestors stormed the premises while escalating violence saw police fire live rounds on crowds. The Kenya National Commission on Human Rights (KNCHR) called this violent response “excessive and disproportionate”.

In the proceeding weeks, President William Ruto dismissed almost his entire cabinet and looked at installing a “broad-based government” in light of the widespread anti-government protests.

He also abandoned Kenya’s tax hikes.

However, by August Ruto had warned of a funding shortfall in the country and the need to raise about $1.2 billion by reinstating some unpopular taxes contained in the bill.

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Bangladesh’s ‘killer dictator’ flees the country

A weeks-long student protest in the Asian country saw the ousting of “killer dictator” Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, 76, who fled by helicopter to longtime ally India in August.

Her government was accused of widespread human rights abuses, including the extrajudicial killing of thousands of her political opponents during her 15-year tenure.

The military announced her resignation and then agreed to student demands that Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus, 84, lead a caretaker administration, charged with ending disorder and enacting democratic reforms.

“Our responsibility is to build a new Bangladesh,” interim leader Yunus told reporters after embracing the weeping mother of a student shot dead by police

ALSO READ: Whitewashing the past: Students give Bangladesh a makeover

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UK protests rising migration after mass stabbing

Protests kicked off in the United Kingdom (UK) after a mass stabbing at a dance studio in Southport, Merseyside on 29 July. Three children were killed and 10 other people, including eight children, were injured.

The 17-year-old accused, Axel Rudakubana, is British-born but his parents are from Rwanda.

Messages spread on social media that the boy was a Muslim migrant or an asylum seeker. Many citizens grew angry at this, blaming surging stabbing incidents in the country on migrants.

Protestors clashed with police during a vigil the next day. Riots spread to towns and cities across England in the coming days and even went as far as Northern Ireland.

Over 1 000 people were arrested in total.

ALSO READ: ‘Whatever it takes’: UK grapples with worst riots in 13 years

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India unites against gender-based violence after horrific incident

Thousands of protesters clashed in India’s eastern city of Kolkata in August, where demonstrations seeking justice for a raped and murdered doctor spiralled into violent street skirmishes between political rivals.

For the most part, however, protesters were united in a common cause, arch-rival football fans and lawyers marching side by side.

The discovery of the 31-year-old doctor’s bloodied body at a state-run hospital in Kolkata on 9 August stoked nationwide anger at the chronic issue of violence against women.

A huge strike by medical staff followed and India’s Supreme Court responded by ordering a national task force to examine how to bolster security for healthcare workers.

Doctors returned to work after this.

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Georgia’s Parliament goes against country, President

Mass protests broke out in Georgia in May and June when the eastern European country’s Parliament announced it would sign into law a much-contested ‘foreign influence’ bill.

The bill requires non-governmental organisations and media outlets that receive more than 20 percent of their funding from abroad to register as bodies “pursuing the interests of a foreign power.”

The law was criticised by protesters, met with condemnation by Western countries and somehow survived a presidential veto.

The bill was widely slammed for mirroring Russian legislation used to silence dissent, and was seen as a backwards step for freedom in the former Soviet Union state.

Physical altercations between opposition and ruling party MPs erupted in Parliament as hundreds of mainly young protesters gathered outside the building in growing numbers for days of protests against the bill.

Brussels warned the move would derail the Black Sea nation from its path to European Union membership, and the United States threatened to levy visa bans and sanctions on individuals over the law.

Despite all this, the bill was signed in early June.