ZCZC
BFF-11
IRAQ-PROTESTS
Anti-government protests resume in Iraq after bloodshed
BAGHDAD, Oct 25, 2019 (BSS/AFP) – Anti-government rallies have renewed
across Iraq, the second phase of protests that turned deadly earlier this
month and which could balloon after the endorsement of populist cleric
Moqtada al-Sadr.
Iraq was rocked by demonstrations in early October, first denouncing
corruption and unemployment before evolving into calls for an overhaul of the
political system.
They quieted after a crushing response by security forces and were set to
resume Friday, which marks a year since embattled Prime Minister Adel Abdel
Mahdi came to power.
But hundreds descended into the streets of the Iraqi capital earlier than
anticipated.
They gathered in Baghdad’s iconic Tahrir (Liberation) Square late Thursday,
carrying Iraq’s tricolour flag and calling for the country’s entrenched
political class to be “uprooted”.
A few dozen headed towards the high-security Green Zone, which hosts
government offices and foreign embassies, but were pushed back by security
forces using water cannons.
Other rallies erupted in the southern cities of Diwaniyah and Nasiriyah,
where demonstrators said they would remain in the streets “until the regime
falls”.
Just after midnight, Abdel Mahdi made a scheduled televised appearance
ahead of the larger protests expected the following day.
He defended his reform agenda including a cabinet reshuffle and told the
protesters it was their “right” to demonstrate as long as they did not
“disturb public life”.
But in an unusually critical tone, the premier complained that previous
governments had not faced the same kind of level of scrutiny and said
political figures demanding “reform” had themselves failed to enact it.
Abdel Mahdi’s comments appeared to be a reference to Sadr, the influential
ex-militiaman who controls the largest parliamentary bloc, itself called the
“Alliance towards Reform.”
Many expect Sadr’s supporters to hit the streets in large numbers on Friday
afternoon, after the weekly sermon of Iraq’s highest Shiite authority Grand
Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani.
Sistani had set Friday as the deadline for Abdel Mahdi to enact reforms and
his noon statement will be the first signal of how the rest of the highly-
anticipated day could develop.
– Short-lived calm –
The mass rallies that erupted on October 1 were unprecedented in recent
Iraqi history both because of their spontaneity and independence, and because
of the brutal violence with which they were met.
At least 157 people were killed, according to a government probe published
on Tuesday, which acknowledged that “excessive force” was used.
A vast majority of them were protesters in Baghdad, with 70 percent shot in
the head or chest.
In response, Abdel Mahdi issued a laundry list of measures meant to ease
public anger, including hiring drives and higher pensions for the families of
protesters who died.
One in five people lives under the poverty line in Iraq and youth
unemployment sits around 25 percent , according to the World Bank.
The rates are staggering for OPEC’s second-biggest oil producer, which
ranks the 12th most corrupt state in the world according to Transparency
International.
The country has been ravaged by decades of conflict that finally calmed in
2017 with a declared victory over the Islamic State group.
Thus began a period of relative calm, with security forces lifting
checkpoints and concrete blast walls and traffic choking city streets at
hours once thought too dangerous.
– ‘Lessons learned’ –
Restrictions had even softened around the Green Zone but were reinstated as
the October demonstrations picked up in Tahrir, which lies just across the
Tigris River.
Authorities also imposed an internet blackout, which has been mostly lifted
although social media remains blocked.
Activists have circumvented these restrictions to call for Friday’s
demonstrations.
The protest movement has brought many of Iraq’s deepest divisions to the
surface, gripping the country’s Shiite-majority areas while the mostly-
Kurdish north and Sunni west have remained quiet.
The powerful Hashed al-Shaabi paramilitary force, whose political branch is
the second-largest parliamentary bloc, has also announced its support to the
government.
It claimed the demonstrations were a “conspiracy” by the US and Israel and
said it was “ready” to back authorities.
But others have extended a hand to the protesters, none more clearly than
Sadr.
He called on the government to resign in early October but this week much
more emphatically backed the protests, giving his supporters the green light
to join them.
BSS/AFP/GMR/0938 hrs