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AFP
Baghdad
Anti-government rallies swelled in Iraq’s capital and south on Wednesday as Baghdad faced new pressure from the street, Washington 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 unmoved by government pledges of reform and undeterred by the deaths of more than 300 people.
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said he told Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdel Mahdi that he “deplored the death toll” and to address the popular movement’s “legitimate grievances”.
The protests had slowed 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 newly emboldened since 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 met on Wednesday afternoon and set dates to interrogate two ministers, which could indicate the first steps of a planned cabinet reshuffle announced by Abdel Mahdi.
Baghdad
Anti-government rallies swelled in Iraq’s capital and south on Wednesday as Baghdad faced new pressure from the street, Washington 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 unmoved by government pledges of reform and undeterred by the deaths of more than 300 people.
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said he told Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdel Mahdi that he “deplored the death toll” and to address the popular movement’s “legitimate grievances”.
The protests had slowed 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 newly emboldened since 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 met on Wednesday afternoon and set dates to interrogate two ministers, which could indicate the first steps of a planned cabinet reshuffle announced by Abdel Mahdi.
