At least four people were killed after police opened fire at a massive protest of several thousand villagers in Bangladesh Monday, April 4th, reported the Phulbari Solidarity Group.

The UK government has published a statement in September highlighting continued opposition and turmoil in Bangladesh over British company GCM Resources’ plans to build a massive open pit coal mine in Phulbari, located in the north west of Bangladesh.  The mine would displace up to 50,000 Indigenous Peoples from 23 farming communities, and up to 220,000 people from the wider areas.

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London-based multinational company, GCM Resources Plc, is desperately moving to implement an immense open pit coal mine in northwest Bangladesh, forcibly displacing an estimated 130,000 people and destroying the homes, lands, and water sources of as many as 220,000 people.  On November 26, 2014, the company’s CEO, Gary Lye, attempted to conduct consultation with locals in Phulbari and was met with angry crowds.  “He had to leave the town in two hours.

Protests were held outside the Annual General Meeting of British mining company GCM Resources on December 4th over the company’s Phulbari coal mine in Bangladesh.  The protests were held by UK solidarity groups the London Mining Network, Phulbari Solidarity Group, and the UK Committee to Protect Oil-Gas and Mineral Resources in Bangladesh.   

British company GCM Resources was dealt a serious blow today as the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) agreed to consider complaints regarding severe human rights violations associated with the company’s planned coal mine in Bangladesh. 

GCM wants to open a massive open-pit coal mine in Phulbari in the north-west of Bangladesh, displacing up to 220,000 people and threatening the Sundarbans, one of the world’s largest remaining mangrove forests and a UNESCO World Heritage site.

Amid a flurry of recent protests, strikes, negative press, and shareholder divestment, British coal company GCM Resources’ executive Grahram Taggart resigned last week.

The company has plans to construct an open-pit coal mine in Northern Bangladesh that is widely opposed by local Indigenous Peoples, grassroots organizations, environmentalists and UN Special Rapporteurs. 

On December 20th, activists protesting an open-pit coal mine in Phulbari, Bangladesh dumped coal at the entrance to mining company GCM Resources in London.

Officials have called the approval of the open-pit mine “unlikely” during this government’s tenure, which will last until late 2013 or early 2014.

This comes as great news for the broad movement of people opposed to the Phulbari open-pit coal mining project in northern Bangaldesh, who have been successful in holding off the project for the past six years thus far.