The campaign of intimidation, kidnappings and killings of protesters seems to be intensifying in Iraq. On Wednesday, December 11, an Iraqi activist was found in the night in Baghdad shot three times in the head, medical and police sources said Wednesday.
This is the third protester murdered in less than ten days in this country rife for more than two months with an unprecedented revolt against the power, which has already made more than 450 dead and 20,000 wounded.
On the night of Tuesday to Wednesday, the body of Ali al-Lami, 49 years old, father of five children, was found in the neighborhood of al-Chaab, his sister, where he had settled a few days previously to demonstrate on Tahrir Square, the epicenter of protest in Baghdad, said his close friend Tayssir al-Atabi.
The victim, originally from Kout, in southern Iraq, "was shot in the head from behind," his friend continues. "It was the corrupt government militias that killed him," he said as protesters point to pro-Iran armed factions in the crackdown.
A police source said the attackers had equipped their guns with silencers, while forensics said Ali al-Lami had been fatally shot by three bullets. On social networks, shortly before his death, he called the protesters "pacifism".
Wave of kidnappings
Ali al-Lami is the third protester killed since 2 December. That day, 19-year-old Zahra Ali, who was distributing Tahrir meals with her father, was abducted and found dead, tortured, a few hours later. On Sunday, Fahem al-Taï, a 53-year-old father, was shot dead by two motorcycle shooters as he was returning home to Kerbala.
In this holy Shiite city in the south of the country, another activist, who was with Fahem al-Taï when the shooters arrived, was shot and another was injured when his car caught fire, apparently due to an explosive charge stuck under the vehicle, according to his relatives.
Before that, since early October, several other activists were found dead in different cities of the country. In addition, dozens of protesters and activists were kidnapped and detained more or less briefly by armed men and in uniforms that the state assures it can not identify.
A wave of kidnappings has taken place in recent days after a gunfight in Baghdad on Friday night by unidentified gunmen who raided a multi-storey car park near Tahrir Square to detain protesters who had occupied it for weeks. . Twenty protesters and four policemen were killed. A hundred people were also injured.
With AFP
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