Friday marked the biggest protest march ever held in Iraq after the Sadaam Hussein era with tens of thousands of Iraqis flooded the central Baghdad demanding the ouster of the government headed by Adel Abdul Mahdi. They took to streets after the Friday mass prayer and shouted anti-government slogans.
Protests have been comparatively peaceful by day, becoming more violent after dark as police use tear gas and rubber bullets to battle self-proclaimed “revolutionary” youths. Amnesty International in a report said that the Iraqi police are using an improvised tear gas cannister build from Grenade which will cause 10 times more harm to protestors.
The mostly young protestors re-routed traffic to Tahrir square and are forming a mini-state there with all facilities and infrastructures. There are engineers, doctors, craftsmen, artisans among the protestors who are volunteering the state-building. The protestors pledged to teach Iraqi authorities how an ideal state could be formed and remind them of their unwillingness to do good for the nation by building a mini-state within Baghdad.
Mohammed Najm, a jobless engineering graduate, said the square had become a model for the country he and his comrades hope to build: “We are cleaning streets, others bring us water, they bring us electricity, they wired it up.”A mini-state. Health for free, tuk-tuks transporting for free,” he said. “The state has been around for 16 years and what it failed to do we did in seven days in Tahrir.”
Iraqis have suffered at the hands of this evil bunch who came atop American tanks, and from Iran. Qassem Soleimani’s people are now firing on the Iraqi people in cold blood,” said a protester Qassam al-Sikeeni.
Iraq’s abundant oil wealth has done no good for the public with many living in poverty with limited access to clean water, electricity, health care or education. President Barham Salih said on Thursday that Abdul Mahdi would resign if parliament’s main blocs agreed on a replacement.
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