Baghdad (AFP)
The standoff between protesters and security forces hardened Friday in Iraq on the fourth day of a protest movement, the former claiming "a change of regime" and jobs, the latter firing live ammunition at the crowd.
Dozens of protesters, some masked, flocked to the center of Baghdad in the morning, where security forces fired on protesters, according to AFP journalists.
Intense fire sounded a few hundred meters from the iconic Tahrir Square where the movement started.
Deprived of the Internet since Wednesday night to communicate or share images of the protest, protesters face an imposing cordon of police and military deployed on a radius of two to three kilometers encircling the square.
Since Tuesday, when the movement began in Baghdad, 34 people - 30 protesters and four police officers - have been killed and hundreds wounded according to officials across the country, where many cities are under curfew.
Unheard of in Iraq, the movement was born on social networks, with calls to demonstrate that no political party or religious leader has claimed.
- "We continue" -
But Iraqis, mostly Shiites, were on Friday waiting for the preaching of the great Ayatollah Ali Sistani, the highest religious authority for this community and enjoying great political influence, who could silence the protest or otherwise call for a she continues.
Sayyed, 32, made his choice. "We continue: either we die, or we change the regime," he told AFP, in a street in the city center.
Late last night, 11-month-old head of government Adel Abdel Mahdi called for time to improve the lives of the 40 million Iraqis who came out less than two years ago in nearly four decades. war and chronic shortage of electricity and drinking water.
But at the same time that his speech was broadcast by state television, gunfire resounded in Baghdad and two new deaths were recorded in the southern province of Kout, according to medical and police sources.
And the promises of improvement did not seem to convince the protesters exceeded by the poor public services, the unemployment which affects one in four young people and especially the corruption which has already engulfed four times the budget of the State these last 16 years.
"It's been more than 15 years that we hear the same promises, they do not advance or reverse the situation and they will not make us leave the street," retorts, vehement, Sayyed.
This protest, unprecedented because spontaneous in a country accustomed to partisan, tribal or confessional mobilizations, is the first popular test for the government of Adel Abdel Mahdi.
The position of Grand Ayatollah Sistani is likely to be decisive. In 2014, with a fatwa, he mobilized tens of thousands of fighters against the jihadists of the Islamic State (IS) group.
- "Saboteurs" -
So far, the authorities, who denounce "saboteurs" and propose to the protesters to call a toll free number to express their demands, continue their choice of firmness.
Amnesty International has urged Baghdad to "immediately order the security forces to stop using a force, including lethal, excessive force" and to re-establish the internet connection.
Abdel Mahdi said Thursday night that the Iraqi forces were responding to protesters "by international standards," denouncing the risk of a "return to the militarization of society," in a country torn apart by the US invasion. 2003 by a civil war and deadly intercommunal clashes.
If the protesters say they are afraid of repression, they also fear a political recovery.
The very versatile Shiite leader Moqtada Sadr - who joined the government coalition but regularly threatens to break it - asked Wednesday night his many supporters to organize "peaceful sit-ins".
While Baghdad is on fire and demonstrations and violence are affecting the provinces of Najaf, Missane, Zi Qar, Wassit, Diwaniyah, Babylon and as far as Basra, calm prevails north and west of Baghdad, mainly Sunni and ravaged by the war against IS, as well as in autonomous Kurdistan.
Strong symbol, the authorities closed this sector which had been reopened to the Iraqis in June only, after 15 years of retreat behind walls and barbed wire.
© 2019 AFP