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Iraq demonstrations flare as Baghdad faces renewed pressure
BAGHDAD, Nov 13, 2019 (BSS/AFP) – Anti-government rallies swelled in Iraq’s
capital and south Wednesday as Baghdad faced new pressure from both the
street and the United Nations to respond seriously to weeks of
demonstrations.
Protests demanding a new leadership have rocked the capital and Shiite-
majority south for weeks, the crowds undeterred by government pledges of
reform and the deaths of more than 300 people.
They dimmed for a few days following a deadly crackdown by security
forces in Baghdad and major southern cities but flared again Wednesday with
demonstrations by striking students and teachers.
“We’re here to back the protesters and their legitimate demands, which
include teachers’ rights,” said Aqeel Atshan, a professor on strike in
Baghdad’s Tahrir (Liberation) Square, the epicentre of the protest movement.
In the southern port city of Basra, around 800 students returned to camp
outside the provincial government headquarters days after they had been
pushed out by riot police.
Schools were also shut in the protest hotspots of Diwaniyah and
Nasiriyah.
Protesters have felt revived after the country’s top Shiite religious
authority Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani said they “cannot go home without
sufficient reforms”.
“Students, boys and girls alike, are all here for a sit-in,” another
demonstrator in Tahrir told AFP.
“If Sistani gave the orders for mass civil disobedience, everything
would close — the government, the oil companies, everything. That’s how
we’ll have a solution.” – Sadr changes tune? –
Iraq’s parliament will meet on Wednesday afternoon to hear from the head
of the United Nations’ mission in Iraq (UNAMI), Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert.
She will address the main political blocs and brief lawmakers on her
meeting with Sistani, who in a significant move backed a UN roadmap out of
the crisis.
Hennis-Plasschaert’s proposal calls for an immediate end to violence,
electoral reform and anti-graft measures within two weeks followed by
constitutional amendments and infrastructure legislation within three months.
Oil-rich Iraq is ranked the 12th most corrupt country in the world by
Transparency International, and youth unemployment stands at 25 percent.
Demonstrations erupted on October 1 in fury over a lack of jobs and
corruption, initially fracturing the ruling class.
Populist cleric Moqtada Sadr called on the government to resign and
President Barham Saleh suggested early elections, while other factions stood
by Prime Minister Adel Abdel Mahdi.
But after a series of meetings led by Iran’s influential Major General
Qasem Soleimani, a consensus emerged at the weekend over the government
remaining intact and both Saleh and Sadr appear to have changed their tunes.
Sadr, who is reported to be in Iran, took to Twitter on Wednesday to
call on parliament to enact reforms and for “a general strike, even for one
day,” but did not demand the premier step down.
Saleh, too, appears to have dropped the idea of early elections.
– ‘Deplored death toll’ –
The agreement brokered by Soleimani appeared to pave the way for a
crackdown on demonstrations over the weekend that sent the death toll from
protests to well over 300.
Iraq has faced growing criticism over its response to rallies, with
rights defenders accusing authorities of shooting live rounds at protesters
and curtailing freedom of expression with an internet blackout and mass
arrests.
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said he spoke to Abdel Mahdi by phone
late Tuesday and “deplored the death toll among the protesters as a result of
the Government of Iraq’s crackdown and use of lethal force”.
“I called on him to protect the protesters and to address their
legitimate grievances,” Pompeo said.
Also on Wednesday, the president of Iraqi Kurdistan, Nechirvan Barzani,
was in Baghdad to meet with the premier, president and speaker of parliament.
Barzani and Abdel Mahdi are believed to have good personal ties, and the
Iraqi Kurdish authorities have backed the current government.
But they have worried that any amendments to Iraq’s 2005 constitution as
part of a reform process would infringe on Kurdish rights.
BSS/AFP/RY/1848 hrs