Three years after popular uprising, Iraqis still yearn for change
Audio 01:16
Protesters face off with law enforcement in Baghdad, Tuesday, October 25, to commemorate the third anniversary of the 2019 uprising against power.
AP - Hadi Mizban
Text by: RFI Follow
2 mins
Three years after the October 2019 popular uprising that called for regime change, Iraqis commemorated the bloodiest day of such protests on Tuesday, October 25.
A rally was organized in Baghdad, and if the mobilization was weak, the aspirations are still very present.
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With our correspondent in Baghdad,
Marie-Charlotte Roupie
Tahrir Square in Badgad no longer has the same face: a garden has just been inaugurated there, and no more demonstration brings together as much as those of 2019,
which brought together hundreds of thousands
of protesters in the streets of the whole country. .
Ali al-Dahamat, activist of the Tishreen movement, remembers, this Tuesday, October 25, the popular uprising during which more than 600 people were killed and 30,000 injured.
“
We cannot sacrifice the peaceful legacy of these protests.
We fought against them peacefully, so it would not be possible to associate ourselves with a party that has armed factions.
All the options are still open: to demonstrate, to resort to civil disobedience…
”
► To read also: Iraq: new tandem in power and new hope for a way out of the crisis
His movement Tishreen (October, in Arabic) was born in Baghdad three years ago.
At the time, the demonstrators denounced corruption, youth unemployment and above all demanded a change of regime.
But since then, little has changed.
Today, four out of ten young people are unemployed and the same faces are still at the head of the country.
“
Today, we still want a parliamentary, presidential or semi-presidential regime.
It is impossible for us to be satisfied with a quota government based on sectarianism.
»
Ali expects nothing from the formation of a new government by Prime Minister-designate
Mohammed Shia El-Soudani
.
After a year of political deadlock, the current negotiations aim to distribute the ministries between the influential community parties elected to Parliament.
Some clashes took place this Tuesday between the protesters and the police, like those of October 1, another day of commemoration of the anti-power uprising of 2019. According to the Ministry of the Interior, the few clashes left 36 demonstrators injured and 43 in the ranks of the anti-riot forces.
► To read also:
In Iraq: a new Prime Minister and great challenges
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Iraq
Mohamed Chia al-Sudani