PROTESTS MULTIPLY IN IRAQI CAPITAL AFTER THREE KILLED
Three demonstrators were killed despite calls for restraint from top leaders
BAGHDAD: Iraqi security forces fired live rounds on Wednesday to disperse new protests in the capital, despite calls from top leaders for restraint after three demonstrators were killed.
The demonstrations are the first significant popular challenge to Prime Minister Adel Abdel Mahdi, who formed his government a year ago this month and who controversially blamed the violence on “aggressors” among the protesters.
On Wednesday, the iconic Tahrir Square in Baghdad where hundreds of protesters had gathered the previous day was sealed off by security forces, with some demonstrators gathering around the edges.
Smaller crowds took to the streets in Al Shaab in north Baghdad and Zaafaraniya in the south, a correspondent reported, with riot police attempting to disperse them with tear gas and live rounds fired in the air.
Like the previous day, protesters railed against state corruption, failing public services and unemployment.
“I came out today in support of my brothers in Tahrir Square,” said Abdallah Walid, 27.
He spoke in Zaafaraniya, where protesters were burning tyres on streets lined with riot police vehicles.
“We want jobs and better public services. We’ve been demanding them for years and the government has never responded,” he said.
In Al Shaab, unemployed graduate Mohammad Jubury said protesters “feel like foreigners in our own country.”
“No state would attack its own people like this. We’re being peaceful, but they fired,” he said.
Medical sources said about a dozen people were admitted to hospitals across Baghdad on Wednesday, most of them suffering from tear gas inhalation.
One protester died of wounds sustained in the aftermath of Tuesday’s violence, medics and security sources said on Wednesday, bringing the total toll to three dead. A protester had died on Tuesday in Baghdad, where 200 people were also wounded, and another had died in the south, health officials said.
Riot police had used water cannons, rubber bullets and live rounds to break up the protest of around 1,000 people in Tahrir Square on Tuesday.
Heavy gunfire was heard into the night around Tahrir Square and in the Sadr City district where the funeral was held for the protester killed in Baghdad.
It was not clear if bullets were fired directly at protesters or into the air.
The day’s bloodshed drew condemnation from President Barham Saleh, who urged “restraint and the respect for the law”.
“Peaceful protest is a constitutional right granted to citizens,” he said late Tuesday.
The UN’S top official in Iraq, Jeanine Hennis-plasschaert, expressed “grave concern” on Wednesday, saying she “deeply regrets the casualties”.
She urged authorities to “exercise restraint in their handling of the protests”.
PROTESTERS RAILED AGAINST STATE CORRUPTION, FAILING PUBLIC SERVICES AND UNEMPLOYMENT