Videos posted on Khashan's Facebook page showed him speaking to the crowd about his abduction, saying that he had been threatened with death if he and his colleagues continue to demonstrate.
“We will not be afraid of such threats, and we will not back down,” he said, pledging to continue protesting until the local government is removed from power.
Demonstrators in Samawah issued a statement, renewing their demands that the local government be dismissed, accusing it of corruption and violence against the protesters. They also demanded that the group who kidnapped and threatened Khashan be identified. "We warn against underestimating the repeated incidents of kidnapping and threatening activists by gangs,” read the statement.
Khashan was kidnapped and held for several hours early Thursday morning.
A close friend, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Rudaw English that a car with four masked people intercepted Khashan's car while he was driving with his mother at one o'clock on Thursday morning. He was taken to an unknown location and threatened to stop protesting before being released late in the morning.
Activist Haider Ali said Khashan was questioned by the kidnappers about accusations he had insulted Iranian General Qasem Soleimani and Iraqi militia commander Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, who were both killed last year in an US drone strike. The accusations are “absolutely false,” said Ali.
An annual human rights report released by the US State Department on Tuesday accused the Iraqi government of negligence in protecting its citizens and failing to take serious action against Iran-backed militias.
Iran-backed elements of the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF, or Hashd al-Shaabi in Arabic) “engaged in killing, kidnapping, and extortion throughout the country, in 2020,” the report stated, adding that Baghdad did not keep a tight grip on security forces.
The PMF and government forces have both been involved in kidnappings and assassinations of activists and journalists, the report added, pointing to the killings of Basra activists and Iraqi analyst Husham al-Hashimi, who was threatened by Iran-backed groups before being gunned down in July.
The protest movement began in October 2019, calling for improved government services and an end to government corruption. Several hundred protesters have been killed, and activists and journalists assassinated for covering the movement.
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