5 dead and renewed protests in Iraq and parliament calls for an urgent meeting

Five demonstrators were killed and others injured in renewed protests in the Iraqi capital today, comes in light of the announcement of the Supreme Shiite cleric in Iraq Ali al-Sistani support for the demands of the protesters, and call parliament for an urgent session tomorrow to discuss the demands of the demonstrators.

The Iraqi Observatory for Human Rights this afternoon announced the killing of a demonstrator and wounding nine others in the shooting of Iraqi forces on protesters in the center of the capital.

The Iraqi medical sources announced this morning reached the death toll of the demonstrators during the previous days 44 people, wounding about 1300 others.

Witnesses said that a number of areas of Baghdad, which witnessed large demonstrations in the past few days witnessed a weak protest movement this morning, in light of the heavy deployment of Iraqi security forces in the main squares and streets.

The AFP news agency said that security forces fired in the air to disperse demonstrators in Baghdad this morning, tried to break the curfew announced by the government.
This came at a time when the funeral of a number of dead protests in the city of Najaf (southwestern Iraq).

solidarity
In a sermon Friday, the highest religious authority in Iraq, Ali al-Sistani, called on the three Iraqi presidencies to "real reform", blaming parliament for the delay.

The representative of Sistani Ahmed al-Safi in Friday sermon delivered on his behalf; that the government and political parties did not respond to the demands of the people, and achieved nothing on the ground.

He also warned of what he described as serious repercussions of the use of violence against protesters and called on the Iraqi authorities to remedy matters before it is too late.

Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr entered the protest line, asking the "Sairon" bloc (the largest parliamentary bloc 54 seats out of 329), which follows him; to suspend its work in parliament until the government responds to the demands of the demonstrators.

According to Al Jazeera correspondent in Baghdad, Samer Yusuf, the opposition movement of wisdom and other parties demanded the authorities to respond to the demands of the demonstrators.

For its part, the parliament announced an urgent session tomorrow to discuss the demands of the demonstrators.

"We will work to legislate the deprivation law by allocating 5% of the salaries of the presidencies (parliament, the republic and the ministers) to the disadvantaged and disadvantaged," said Hassan Karim al-Kaabi, the first deputy speaker of parliament.

Kaabi called on the government to allocate 25,000 jobs to graduate students.

Promises
Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi said in a speech broadcast on state television before dawn today that complaining about the general political performance is understandable and justified, and the government can not achieve the dreams of citizens in one year.

He added that the government is following up and will respond to all the legitimate demands of the demonstrators, but there are no magic solutions to the problems.

Abdul-Mahdi said his government had taken measures to hold corrupt people accountable, including dismissing 1,000 employees for corruption and wasting public money.

He added that a decision had been made to release detainees who had not committed criminal acts, and legal committees had been set up to ensure that violence was not used against demonstrators.

Abdul Mahdi also called on MPs to support him to make ministerial changes away from political quotas.

On Tuesday, a wave of violent protests began, along with Baghdad, to several Iraqi cities to demand better public services, jobs and corruption.