The Human Rights Committee of the Iraqi Parliament called for an emergency session to discuss the circumstances of the attack that targeted the demonstrators yesterday near the Al-Senk Bridge in Baghdad, which killed twenty demonstrators.
Whereas, the Parliamentary Security and Defense Committee also announced that an extraordinary meeting was convened and a number of security leaders were called in for investigation.
Witnesses from the site of the protests in central Baghdad said that the liberation and al-Khalani courtyards are witnessing a cautious calm, after the deployment of security forces in the two arenas and the withdrawal of the militants who had targeted the demonstrators last night.
For his part, the head of the Popular Mobilization Committee called Faleh al-Fayyad not to assign any authority or formations of the body to a field role in the demonstration squares, especially the Tahrir Square and its environs.
Al-Fayyad's call comes after accusations of factions in the crowd of being behind the shooting incident of demonstrators in central Baghdad, killing and wounding dozens of them.
The story of the attack
Masked gunmen stormed al-Khilani Square last night with four-wheel-drive civilian cars, and fired indiscriminately with automatic weapons at protesting protesters.
The gunmen continued to shoot for hours before the Interior Ministry announced that its forces had cordoned off the area, investigated the incident and pursued the shooters.
Sources of the island said that the gunmen took control of the Al-Sink parking facility, killing a number of demonstrators and dumping their bodies from the top of the building, before they withdrew from it at dawn today.
Demonstrators accused the Iraqi security forces of colluding with the attackers by giving them permission to enter and roam freely in the area.
It is noteworthy that the Iraqi parliament recently approved the resignation of the government of Adel Abdul Mahdi, amid continuing protests calling for an end to the sectarian quota system, fighting corruption, improving services and providing job opportunities for youth.
Atrocity
In a related context, the representative of the Secretary-General of the United Nations in Iraq, Janine Blackshart, condemned the attack that targeted the Khilani Square demonstrators in central Baghdad, considering that killing the protesters was a brutal act.
"The killing of unarmed demonstrators by armed elements is a brutal act against the people of Iraq," she said, stressing that the attackers must be identified and brought to justice without delay.
Blackshart urged the Iraqi armed forces to protect peaceful demonstrators from violence by armed elements operating outside the control of the state.
For its part, the High Commissioner for Human Rights in Iraq warned of the insecurity of the security situation in Baghdad, and said that the insecurity threatens to cause more casualties among the peaceful demonstrators and the security forces.
The Commission called on the security forces to assume their responsibilities to preserve the lives of peaceful demonstrators and restore security.
Since the beginning of last October, Iraq has been witnessing demonstrations calling for political reform, accountability for the corrupt and job creation, and violent clashes between security forces and demonstrators have killed about 460 people and wounded about twenty thousand others, according to Iraqi human rights sources.