The Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr and hundreds of his supporters entered Baghdad's Green Zone to stage a sit-in against the government and pressure them to implement reforms on Sunday.
"Beloved protesters, I will enter the Green Zone by myself and [with my entourage] only. I sit inside the Green Zone and you sit in at its gates. None of you move," he told his followers according to Reuters before passing a security checkpoint and staging his sit-in near Iraq's parliament and Rashid Hotel.
Television stations that are supportive of the Sadrist Movement showed the cleric sipping a bottle of water while sitting on a simple plastic white chair in a green tent his entourage had set up.
Sadr has been pressuring the incumbent Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi to implement a reform program which will include replacing several ministers with apolitical technocrats in a bid to eliminate patronage networks and the crippling corruption which comes with them.
The sit-in took place despite heavy rain in the Iraqi capital.
"Beloved protesters, I will enter the Green Zone by myself and [with my entourage] only. I sit inside the Green Zone and you sit in at its gates. None of you move," he told his followers according to Reuters before passing a security checkpoint and staging his sit-in near Iraq's parliament and Rashid Hotel.
Television stations that are supportive of the Sadrist Movement showed the cleric sipping a bottle of water while sitting on a simple plastic white chair in a green tent his entourage had set up.
Sadr has been pressuring the incumbent Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi to implement a reform program which will include replacing several ministers with apolitical technocrats in a bid to eliminate patronage networks and the crippling corruption which comes with them.
The sit-in took place despite heavy rain in the Iraqi capital.
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