“Iraq is in a sensitive state that requires political and security stability. Chaos and damage to security as well as uncontrollable incidents deteriorate the situation. [And as a result] nothing will be resolved and all Iraqi people will lose,” Kurdistan Region President Nechirvan Barzani said in a published statement on Friday.
Spontaneous protests broke out on Tuesday in Baghdad and quickly spread throughout multiple provinces. Demonstrators are demanding action tackling high youth unemployment, poverty, poor services, and corruption.
Barzani said Iraq’s problems are the result of decades of “wrong behaviour and politics… of successive governments of Iraq, and no cabinet can resolve them overnight.”
Meeting the demands of the protesters needs the support of all powers and parties, he said, and that won’t be possible without the stability of the state and the rule of law.
According to the latest figures from Iraq’s Independent High Commission for Human Rights (IHCHR), at least 39 people have been killed and 1,936 wounded since the protests began, including civilians and security personnel. In addition, 454 protesters have been detained, with 287 released so far.
On Friday, four people - two civilians and two members of the security forces - have been killed by "unidentified snipers" in Baghdad, Iraqi News Agency reported, citing the Security Media Cell.
The rights monitor IHCHR on Friday was prevented by security forces from accessing areas where clashes between protesters and security forces were ongoing, Hemin Bajalan, a member of IHCHR told Rudaw English. They have also been barred from entering hospitals where hundreds of the wounded are being treated.
Security forces “come and beat the protesters and arrest them,” a young man protesting in Baghdad on Friday told Rudaw. “They kill a person every hour.”
He welcomed children seen joining the demonstrations in the streets: “The revolution is theirs as well. Everyone has to come out for the revolution… Hopefully, we will topple the government.”
Despite a government curfew and shutdown of the internet, “intense” protests are taking place on Friday in Baghdad, Dhi Qar, Diwaniyah, Basra, and Diyala, according to IHCHR and Rudaw’s reporters on the ground.
Iraqis are wide awake, fed up with the religious and political authorities, American-Iraqi activist Anas Ebraheem told Rudaw in Washington on Friday. He said it’s time for a whole new system of governance and a new constitution.
“This time it’s real. This is a revolution,” he said, noting that the protests are organic, driven by the people and not religious or political groups.
Protests last summer ended former prime minister Haider al-Abadi’s bid for a second term. Adil Abdul-Mahdi was selected as a compromise premier by competing political factions, but nearly a year later he still hasn’t been able to complete his cabinet.
In an early morning televised address, Abdul-Mahdi appealed to the protesters to give his government more time.
“There are no magical solutions, and the government cannot achieve all the dreams and ambitions within just one year, those dreams that haven’t been achieved through long decades,” he said of the myriad of entrenched problems his cabinet has “inherited.”
His words were not welcomed on the streets in Baghdad where one young man said the politicians are “liars” who are not fulfilling their promises. Security forces aren’t even letting people shop for food, he told Rudaw.
The top Shiite authority in the country, Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, said the use of force against the protesters was “unacceptable” and called for “serious steps” towards reform and against corruption. Iraq is the world’s twelfth most corrupt nation, according to Transparency International.
Influential cleric Muqtada al-Sadr ordered the suspension of his Sayirun bloc in the parliament pending definitive action from Abdul-Mahdi to address the protesters’ demands. With 54 seats, Sayirun is the largest group in the legislature.
"We call on the prime minister to have an applicable agenda for his government, which includes economic reforms and prioritizes the needs of people,” Hassan al-Aquli, the head of the bloc, said in press conference in Baghdad Friday, announcing their withdrawal from the parliament.
Sayirun denied that protesters seek to unseat Abdul-Mahdi or his cabinet, but said he must “soon” fulfill promises of financial relief to poor families and the release of detainees. If the prime minister submits an agenda to parliament that meets the demands of protesters, then they will return to the legislature, Aquli said.
The bloc called on protesters to remain peaceful.
Internet access, which was cut on Wednesday, was briefly restored Thursday evening, but quickly cut again, according to the internet freedom watchdog Netblocks.
With additional reporting from Lawk Ghafuri in Erbil and Roj Eli Zalla in Washington.
Updated at 8:41 pm
