Protesters calling for a provincial governor to resign blocked a bridge in the southern Iraqi city of Basra today, as demonstrations against government continued across Iraq.
In the wake of the uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia, frustrated Iraqis have staged repeated protests across the country. This week, at least five people were killed after demonstrations in two cities turned violent.
About 1,000 people rallied today in Basra, Iraq’s second-largest city, to demand better services from the government, jobs and improved pensions.
They shouted slogans warning that today’s demonstration was peaceful but ones in the future might not be.
“We’re living in miserable conditions, no electricity, dirty muddy streets. We have to make changes. We should not be silent,” said one of the protesters, Qais Jabbar (32). The father-of-three said despite a college degree, he works as a taxi driver and shares a small house with his three brothers and their families in eastern Baghdad.
Basra is the hub of Iraq’s oil industry and the country has some of the largest oil reserves in the world, but residents complain that little of the oil wealth has trickled down to the city’s inhabitants.
The autonomous Kurdish region in northern Iraq enjoys more economic success than the rest of the country but that has not stopped protests there. In a demonstration yesterday in Sulaimaniyah, two people were killed and 47 injured when Kurdish security guards opened fire on protesters demanding political reforms.
Many Kurds complain that the two dominant political parties in the Kurdish region have a stranglehold on jobs and the economy.
President Massoud Barzani vowed to investigate the issue and called for calm.
The protesters were demonstrating outside the headquarters of Mr Barzani’s political party, the Kurdistan Democratic Party, and began pelting the building with rocks. In a statement, the KDP said the private security guards were forced to defend themselves.
AP