The Hindu, November 4, 2019
Iraq
protests ramp up, shutting roads, offices and schools
The
Qasr port, one of the main conduits for food, medicine and other imports into
Iraq was also closed
Protesters
in Iraq's capital and the country's south shut down streets and government
offices in a new wave of civil disobedience on November 3, escalating their
month-long movement demanding wholesale change of the political system.
Demonstrations
broke out on October 1 in outrage over rampant corruption and unemployment in
Iraq. They were met with a violent crackdown that left dozens dead. Since
resuming late last month, the protests have swelled again with the support of
students and trade unions, who jointly announced a campaign of non-violent
resistance on November 3.
In
Baghdad, university-age demonstrators parked cars along main thoroughfares to
block traffic on the first day of the working week in the Muslim-majority
country, as police officers looked on. Other students took part in sit-ins at
their schools, and the national teachers union extended a strike they began
last week. The engineering, doctors and lawyers syndicates have all backed the
protests.
"We
decided to cut the roads as a message to the government that we will keep
protesting until the corrupt people and thieves are kicked out and the regime
falls," said Tahseen Nasser, a 25-year-old protester in the eastern city
of Kut. In the southern city of Diwaniyah, a banner hanging on the headquarters
of the provincial council proclaimed: "Closed by order of the
people".
'Government
lies'
The
government has proposed a string of reforms, including a hiring drive, social
welfare plans and early elections once a new voting law is passed. But
protesters have stayed on the streets, condemning the political class
wholesale.
"We
decided on this campaign of civil disobedience because we have had it up to
here with the government's lies and promises of so-called reform," said
Mohammad al-Assadi, a government employee on strike in the southern city of
Nasiriyah.
Demonstrators
there organised sit-ins on bridges leading out of the city, as well as its main
streets and squares. Schools and government offices were closed in Baghdad and
half a dozen other cities in the south.
In the
oil-rich port city Basra, public schools were shut for the first time since the
movement erupted in October. Protesters also kept closed the highway to the
Qasr port, one of the main conduits for food, medicine and other imports into
Iraq.
A
source at the port told AFP that around a dozen ships had pulled away to take
their goods elsewhere on Saturday, after waiting to unload their cargo. The
spreading sit-ins indicate a new phase in the protests, already hailed as the
largest grassroots movement in Iraq in decades.
Civil
society 'recovers'
Under
ex-dictator Saddam Hussein, rallies that were not exuberantly supporting him or
his Baathist government were banned.
After
he was toppled by the U.S.-led invasion of 2003, political parties tussling for
influence were the only actors able to draw large numbers out into the streets.
"Iraq's
civil society which was undermined by decades of Baathist authoritarianism and
sectarianism is recovering," wrote Harith Hasan, a scholar at the Carnegie
Endowment's Middle East Center. But the movement has also been bloodied by the
deaths of more than 250 people, the vast majority of them protesters.
On
November 2, medical sources told AFP at least one person was killed and dozens
wounded in clashes with security forces near the capital's Tahrir Square, a
focal point for demonstrators. Young protesters have spilt over from Tahrir
onto two main bridges leading to the western bank of the Tigris.
They
parked cars across roads on November 3, while large numbers of students and
schoolchildren thronged towards the square, AFP journalists said.
Alaa
Wissam, a 25-year-old architect, said young people were heading to the square
to volunteer their help. "This thing will help young people to have a role
in the change that is happening," she said.
Riot
police deployed along the bridges have fired tear gas to keep back protesters,
who have dug in to their positions behind their own barricades.
Amnesty
International slammed Iraqi forces days ago for using two types of
military-grade tear gas canisters that have pierced protesters' skulls and
lungs. Rights groups have also expressed worry over the detention of
protesters, journalists and medics.
On
November 3, the Iraqi Human Rights Commission said Saba Mahdawi, a doctor and
activist, had been abducted the previous evening after providing medical aid to
protesters. Mahdawi's mother said she had been abducted by "armed, masked
men on pick-up trucks" as she headed home from Tahrir late on Saturday
evening.
The
Commission did not say who may have seized her but urged security forces to
investigate the matter and other "organised kidnapping operations" in
recent weeks. It called Mahdawi's abduction "a mark of shame for the whole
of Iraqi society". Later, the interior ministry announced the release of a
second demonstrator, seized two days earlier, without providing a name.
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