A year after the October revolt, thousands of Iraqis once again take to the streets against power

One year after the first anniversary of the "October Revolution", thousands of Iraqis demonstrated in Baghdad on Sunday October 25 to denounce a power incapable of reforming itself and providing them with basic services.

Protesters also oppose the growing influence of pro-Iran Iraqi armed factions.

This new mobilization opens all possibilities in a country where the anger of young people was repressed in the blood in 2019, with nearly 600 demonstrators killed, 30,000 injured and hundreds of arrests.

The repression of the police was accompanied by a campaign of assassinations and kidnappings of figures of the revolt, led according to the UN by "militias".

>> See also on France 24:

In anticipation of the parades, military roadblocks crisscrossed the center of Baghdad, preventing any vehicle from approaching Tahrir Square and the bridges leading to the Green Zone, an ultra-secure area where the Iraqi Parliament and government sit, but also the United States Embassy.

Riot police cords, encamped behind their imposing shields, barred access to demonstrators waving Iraqi flags.

"Building a new Iraq"

Ali Ghazi, who is demonstrating in Nassiriya, in the south of the country, the bastion of all revolts in Iraq, told AFP that he was there "to repeat that we want to achieve our objective: to build a new Iraq". 

In October 2019, first the first week, then again from the 25th, with the other demonstrators, he was already calling for a total renewal of the political system, the end of endemic corruption and jobs and services for all.

This year, the Prime Minister, Mustafa al-Kazimi, appointed in April to try to get the country out of the doldrums, has repeatedly said that he ordered the security forces not to use weapons or lethal force. .

>> Read also: 

But in a country that has gone from conflict to conflict for decades and where armed groups have continued to extend their influence, weapons are everywhere, as Moustafa al-Kazimi, also head of foreign intelligence, admits. was able to stop rocket fire, assassinations and threats from armed factions.

The popular revolt had been eclipsed by the tensions between Iran and the United States, enemy countries and the main powers acting in Iraq, then by the Covid-19 pandemic.  

Protesters around the Green Zone

On Sunday, the demonstrators, who stayed in Tahrir Square last year, separated only from the Green Zone by a bridge, went to this area prohibited from access to Iraqi citizens. 

According to Sajjad Salam, a lawyer and activist in Kout, southern Iraq, hundreds of protesters from his city joined Baghdad to enter the Green Zone, a symbol for protesters of power and its disconnection from the rest of the country. Iraq.

"We want the dissolution of Parliament, transparent elections, a law on parties and the resumption of state control over arms," ​​he enumerates.

Mustafa al-Kazimi's military spokesman urged protesters to stay in Tahrir Square, saying it was the only "completely safe" place, as very brief clashes took place in a neighborhood, at one of the Entrances to the Green Zone.

Also in the south of the country, in Amara, buses of demonstrators left for Baghdad.

For activist Hussein Mourtada, "they are determined despite the threats."

More precariousness since confinement

The demonstrators want to mark the anniversary of their revolt, because they believe that nothing has changed.

They who demanded jobs for young people even claim that their conditions have deteriorated.

Oil prices have fallen, health lockdown has deprived daily workers of income and the salaries of civil servants and pensioners, one in five Iraqis, have arrived late.

Mustafa al-Kazimi said on Saturday that he was working to do justice to the "martyrs" of October 2019 and to straighten out one of the world's most oil-dependent economies.

But so far he has not presented any reforms and the pro-Iran-dominated parliament still has not voted on the electoral map or the 2020 budget, the two major government projects accused by the most radical of the pro-Iran of to be the "agent" of the Americans.

The great unknown of Sunday remains the behavior of the pro-Iran factions which accuse the demonstrators of being in the pay of the United States which they regard as an "occupier".

With AFP

The summary of the week

France 24 invites you to come back to the news that marked the week

I subscribe

Take international news everywhere with you!

Download the France 24 application

google-play-badge_FR