PROTESTERS KILLED IN KARBALAAS POLICE FIRE ON CROWDS IN IRAQI CITY
Protesters said they were gathering to demonstrate again despite the threat of violence
At least 18 people were killed and 865 wounded in the Iraqi Shiite city of Karbala on Monday night when live rounds were fired at protesters.
Events took a violent turn at demonstrations outside the governorate’s council office at about 10pm local time. Riot police and paramilitary units arrived and live rounds were
fired, protester Samir told The
National.
“They hit [protesters] with live bullets from inside their cars. How can they attack them like this?” he said.
Ali, another protester, said the police and army were also targeted by people wearing black civilian clothes, who arrived in civilian cars.
“Unknown forces aimed at protesters, police and army ... the police were co-operating with the protesters. There was a high number of injuries and some died. They used live bullets,” Ali said.
It was not clear who was behind the attack, and protesters said they were not sure whether the men were police or militias because it had been hard to see because of the tear gas.
Sources told AP that Iraqi soldiers had been stationed around the protest site but withdrew after the attackers began firing. Protesters who spoke to The
National said there was a wave of arrests overnight at the homes of civil activists. One said that some protesters were arrested while in hospital.
A resident said gunfire could be heard until dawn, yet despite the night of violence, students gathered to demonstrate again yesterday morning.
“I was between the area of the governorate office and Tarbiya,” said Al Kaby, a protester from Karbala. “They were gathered in front of the door of the provincial office ... men in black hummers attacked us. They used live bullets,” he said.
“They attacked peaceful protesters who were only carrying the Iraqi flag ... I saw people die in front of me.”
Yesterday Al Kaby was back protesting in Karbala, which he said was quiet. “We just want to claim our rights, we will stay here,” he said. “There’s no solution but the fall of the regime.”
The provincial governor, Nassif Al Khutabi, denied that any protesters were killed but said there were some injuries among security forces. Three protesters in the southern city of Nasiriyah also died overnight from wounds suffered in earlier demonstrations.
Iraqis took to the streets for a fourth day on Monday in a second wave of anti-government protests in which 250 people have been killed in October.
The army said it would impose an overnight curfew in the capital after students and schoolchildren joined the protests to demand an overhaul of the government.
Large parts of Iraq were engulfed by demonstrations about unemployment and corruption this month. Protests have since evolved into demands for regime change. Soldiers were seen beating highschool pupils with batons in two Baghdad districts. The Defence Ministry condemned the incident and said the soldiers did not represent the Iraqi army as a whole. It did not say if they would be punished.
Populist Shiite cleric Moqtada Al Sadr, who backs parliament’s largest bloc and helped bring Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi’s fragile coalition government to power, called on Monday for early elections.
The first wave of unrest, before a two-week break with protests resuming on October 25, was investigated by an Iraqi government committee. It found that 149 civilians were killed because security forces used excessive force and live fire to quell protests, and that more than 70 per cent of the deaths were caused by shots to the head or chest.
The committee held senior commanders responsible, but stopped short of blaming the prime minister and other top officials, saying there had been no order to shoot.
The United Nations mission in Iraq said the authorities had committed serious human rights violations and abuses.
The protests, leaderless and largely spontaneous, were met with bullets and tear gas by security forces from the first day.