‘I’ve been paid once in 118 days,’ says officer shot during salary protests
ERBIL, Kurdistan Region — Captain Hana Khudadad, the police officer shot on Sunday in Sulaimani protests over unpaid civil servant salaries says he has only been paid once in the past four months.
Protesters in Piramagrun town, northwest of Sulaimani city blocked the main road to Erbil for the second day in a row on Sunday. That is when Captain Hana and his team received an order to head to the scene.
“Upon our arrival to the spot, we were shot at by protesters with a gun and the first bullet hit my right thigh,” he said. “The attacker then fled the scene and police are looking for him.”
“I am the only person in the family with a salary and our lives have become hard due to the economic situation,” said Khudadad, adding that his salary has been cut by 18 percent.
Khudadad was discharged from hospital on Monday morning after undergoing surgery.
Protests erupted in Sulaimani city last Wednesday, where civil servants convened at Saraa square, the epicenter of the city’s antigovernment protests in 2011.
Protests centred around the grievances of teachers and other civil servants, who have gone unpaid for much of this year amid budget disputes between the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in Erbil and the federal government in Baghdad.
Police forces suppressed the crowds using tear gas, rubber bullets and water cannons, but protests in provincial towns continued on Saturday and Sunday.
On Sunday, protesters in Piramagrun town attacked the offices of leading Kurdish political parties, burning down the office of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK).
They later attempted to do the same to the office of Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), but KDP guards fought back, local sources told Rudaw English.
KDP officials in Piramagrun confirmed the eyewitness account.
“We are now stuck inside the office and are surrounded by protestors trying to attack the office with stones and molotov cocktails,” Sherwan Agha, head of the town’s KDP office, told Rudaw English.
Later that night, police closed down the main office of opposition outlet NRT in Sulaimani.
"At 2:30am, a security force raided the main headquarters of the NRT channel in the city of Sulaimani and stopped its broadcast,” NRT said on its website. “The force padlocked the channel [offices] and stationed forces outside, seizing some of the equipment and destroying another part.”
NRT is owned by businessman Shaswar Abdulwahid, head of the New Generation opposition party.
The Ministry of Culture ordered that NRT suspend broadcasting on Sunday.
Journalists held a press conference in front of the NRT building on Monday, condemning the move as a violation of press freedom.
“We have issued a report condemning this act that suppresses the freedom of press and ask the government to review their decision,” Rahman Gharib, head of media watchdog Metro Center said during the press conference.
PUK co-leader Bafel Talabani previously said his party “believes in the freedom of the press and want to promote it,” in a meeting with reporters on November 29.