ERBIL, Kurdistan Region — A human rights watchdog has warned against the use of violence against protesters, calling on the government to protect them ahead of a mass demonstration scheduled for Tuesday in Baghdad.
“The Iraqi Observatory for Human Rights warns the government against using violence against demonstrators. Thousands prepare to demonstrate again in Baghdad. The government should protect them,” the observatory tweeted on Monday.
Huge crowds from the central and southern provinces will set out towards the capital, Baghdad, to the city’s Nisour and Firdos squares as headquarters for the protests. Activists said that there is high coordination between demonstrators in different provinces.
"We may go towards the Green Zone to pressure the government to reveal the killers of the demonstrators and activists and bring them to justice," activist Ridha Hajwel told Rudaw English.
The demonstrations were called for by prominent Karbala activist Ihab al-Wazni, days before his assassination earlier in May.
Activists said that al-Wazni raised the idea at the funeral of Jassem Hattab, who was assassinated in the southern Iraqi province of Maysan in March. Hattab was the father of kidnapped activist Ali Jaseb, whose fate remains unknown.
"The government must admit that it is unable to protect citizens and activists, and admit its failure," Nasiriyah activist Haidar Falah told Rudaw English on Monday.
Hashtags such as as “#Who_killed_Me” and “#The_Living_Are_Back” are going viral on social media, calling on people to participate in the protests.
There have been 81 attempted assassinations of activists since anti-government protests began in October 2019, according to Ali al-Bayati, a member of the Iraqi High Commission of Human Rights. Thirty-four activists have been killed.
Since the emergence of the protest movement in October 2019, at least 600 protesters and members of the security forces have been killed and more than 18,000 injured, Amnesty International said in January 2020.
