"No to political parties! No to militias!"

We chanted several hundred people who demonstrated, Sunday, July 18, in Baghdad to demand "the end of impunity" in Iraq, where dozens of opponents and activists have been killed or kidnapped since the popular uprising of October 2019 .

Waving Iraqi flags and waving portraits of murdered "martyrs", protesters, including many students who had participated in the 2019 uprising, marched through the center of the capital under heavy police surveillance before listening to songs and reading from a poem by one of the most emblematic activists of 2019, the young artist Safaa Saray, killed by a tear gas grenade received in the head in Tahrir Square, epicenter of the protest in Baghdad.

>> To see: Protest in Iraq: report alongside demonstrators injured by gunfire

Since the uprising, suppressed in blood (600 dead, tens of thousands injured), many militants have fled Iraq or have taken refuge in autonomous Iraqi Kurdistan, in the north of the country, for fear of reprisals. 

The killings and kidnappings of activists have never been claimed, but the demonstrators point the finger at the powerful pro-Iranian militias, essential in Iraq, and are indignant that no one has ever been held to account.

>> To see: Exclusive: in Iraq, at the heart of the revolt

"We want the killings to stop"

"We want freedom, that's why we started the revolution in 2019, and we won't stop until we get it," 18-year-old student Hussein al told AFP. -Feili.

"We want the killings to stop, we want a country free from militias and Iranian stranglehold", for her part launches a young woman, dark glasses and mask on her nose, the only way not to be recognized and risk harm. retaliation, she laughs.

>> To read: Assassinations in Iraq: dissonant voices threatened with elimination before the elections

Asked about the Prime Minister's announcement on Friday of the arrest of the killer of famous Iraqi researcher Hicham al-Hachemi, whose assassination shocked Iraq in July 2020, many demonstrators shrug their shoulders: "we want the sponsor ", summarizes Hussein al-Feili.

Dozens of people also demonstrated in Nassiriya, a rebellious southern city.

Women hold up signs calling on the authorities to hold accountable the murderers of dozens of activists during a demonstration in Haboubi Square in Nasiriyah, southern Iraq, July 18, 2021. © Asaad Niazi, AFP

The event was organized by an online campaign "Stop Impunity in Iraq", launched by activists from the diaspora and inside the country.

بدأ وصول المشاركين في مسيرة باريس لدعم حملة # إنهاء_الإفلات_من_العقاب في العراق. # July18th # EndImpunity in Iraq pic.twlitterDA.com/Enk8M8M

- End Impunity in Iraq (@EndImpunityIraq) July 18, 2021

Small symbolic gatherings were also held in Paris, London or Helsinki, according to videos posted on Twitter by the organization.

With AFP

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