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Demonstrators burn tires to block a street during demonstrations in Baghdad, January 19, 2020. REUTERS / Khalid al-Mousily

This Sunday, January 19, in Baghdad and in several cities in southern Iraq, new demonstrations broke out. A dozen people, including police officers, were injured in the clashes. Protesters demand the renewal of a political class deemed corrupt and threaten to further intensify their movement if their demands are unsuccessful.

This unprecedented protest movement in Iraq had been overshadowed in recent weeks by the escalating tensions between Iran and the United States, the two main sponsors of Baghdad.

Faced with the risk of seeing their country become the main theater of the confrontation between Tehran and Washington, the demonstrators had granted the government a week to advance their demands.

On Sunday, on the eve of this deadline, hundreds of angry young people revived the movement by demonstrating in Tahrir and Tayaran squares in Baghdad. Highways and bridges have been blocked by barrages of tires burnt by protesters, adding to congestion in the second most populous capital of the Arab world (some nine million inhabitants).

Protesters call for reforms

An advance poll on the basis of a reformed electoral law, and a new Prime Minister to replace the current head of the resigning government Adel Abdel Mahdi , this is what the demonstrators claim. They also call for an end to corruption, which has engulfed Iraq's GDP twice over the past 16 years, and to the political system of job distribution according to ethnic groups and faiths.

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Prime Minister Abdel Abdel Mahdi resigned almost two months ago, but political parties have so far failed to agree on a successor, who continues to lead the government.

Protesters have publicly rejected the names of possible replacements and are furious that other far-reaching reforms have not been implemented.

Repression and intimidation campaign

Rallies also took place in the southern cities of Diwaniya, Kout, Amara, where most government offices, schools and universities have been closed for months. In the holy city of Najaf, south of Baghdad, young people with Iraqi flags burned tires and started a sit-in on a main road to the capital. Further south, in Basra, the students participated in a strike movement.

Since October , the protest has been punctuated by violence and suppressed by the police. There were around 460 dead - almost all of them protesters - and more than 25,000 injured.

While violence fell slightly during the protests, activists say they are facing a massive campaign of intimidation, assassinations and kidnappings.

(With AFP)