This is "the worst restriction on telecommunications imposed by the Iraqi government since the beginning of the demonstrations" on October 1, according to the NGO specializing in cybersecurity NetBlocks.
Since the beginning of this movement demanding "the fall of the regime" Iraq, more than 270 people (mostly demonstrators) have lost their lives in the violence, according to a report compiled by AFP.
The authorities proposed social reforms and early elections. A commission charged with drafting constitutional amendments even began its work on Tuesday, 5 November. But the protesters demand the departure of all the leaders and a new political system.
Protesters flocked again Tuesday to the capital, assuring "not to be afraid", after the death in at least 36 hours of at least ten demonstrators, killed by law enforcement across the country, according to medical sources.
And in several southern cities, the administrations are stopped because of a civil disobedience movement. In Nassiriya, Kout and Diwaniya, pickets paralyzed Tuesday the entire government, according to AFP correspondents.
"It will not help"
The authorities cut the Internet from midnight to 9 am, and then interrupted it again at midday.
"They have already cut the Internet and once again, it will be useless," said Tuesday Ammar, 41, at AFP on Tahrir Square in Baghdad.
Internet had been cut from October 3 to 17. The blockade on social networks continues since October 2, although bypassed through VPN applications.
"The leaders do not scare us, they are the ones who are frightened by us, because we are peaceful," says a protester to AFP. "The tyrants pass, but the peoples stay," adds an old man, keffiyeh on the head.
The South Shiite is particularly affected by the movement: four demonstrators were killed in the night of Sunday to Monday in the holy Shia city of Kerbala, 100 kilometers south of Baghdad, where protesters had tried to burn the consulate of Iran, a country that pulls the strings of the "regime" according to the protesters.
The police fired live ammunition at the protesters during a day that woke up the painful memories of the beginning of the month. In a country then cut off from the world, without Internet or social networks, snipers, which the state insists still can not identify, had fired on the crowd for five days. From October 1 to 6, according to the authorities' official report, 157 people, the vast majority of whom were demonstrators, were killed.
Iran concentrates anger
After 18 days of calm for the world's largest Shia pilgrimage to Kerbala, the protest resumed on 24 October. This time it had the air of gigantic peaceful civil disobedience, enamelled by deadly violence during attacks by party headquarters and militias.
But since Monday, the violence has resumed again and Tuesday, a sign of concern over an escalation, the leaders of autonomous Kurdistan, so far away, have met in their region Iraqi President Barham Saleh , himself a Kurd.
>> Read also: Fronds in Iraq and Lebanon: "Iran finds itself in an awkward position in its sphere of influence"
In recent days, the anger of the street is focused on Iran, acting power in Iraq with the United States. General Qassem Soleimani, commander of the Iranian ideological army's external operations forces, has increased his visits to Iraq. And Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei's comments, denouncing an American and Israeli "plot", have exacerbated the wrath of the Iraqis.
"It is the Iranians who run the country, we prefer to die rather than remain under their yoke," said Tuesday a protester in Tahrir Square, where a gallows and a symbolic "people's tribunal" were installed Monday night.
With AFP