Protestors returned to Habboubi Square, the focal point of the southern Iraqi city's protests, to rebuild more durable structures using bricks after Sadr’s supporters attacked them and burned their tents down last Friday. Protesters were forced out of their tents and shot at by Sadr supporters, leaving at least seven people dead and scores wounded in a city which has significant bloodshed since demonstrations began last October.
A week later, protestors rallied again, chanting their “cowards do not build freedom” slogan, demanding their rights from the government, and asking that killers of protesters pay for their crimes.
“We will continue protesting – it is our constitutional right that no one can take away,” Amir Karim, a protestor told Rudaw’s Halkawt Aziz.
The protestors of Nasiriyah have several demands.
“We want the people who shed our blood to be hanged, we are families of those martyrs and they need to pay for their murder,” a protestor said. “We have no electricity, no proper sewage system, no form of life.”
“The people of Nasiriyah will never stop asking for their rights,” another protestor added.
At least 600 protesters and members of the security forces were killed and more than 18,000 injured in the six months since a popular movement calling for an end to corruption, better provision of basic services, and an overhaul of the political establishment emerged in October of last year, according to Amnesty International.
While Rudaw correspondent Halkawt Aziz reported live from Habboubi Square, one protester in the background could be seen holding up a placard that read “From Habboubi Square to Sulaimani protestors: One hand to fight violence and corruption,” in an apparent expression of solidarity with demonstrators in the Kurdistan Region’s second biggest city.
Protesters in Sulaimani calling for an end to a delay in civil sector salary payments were subject to a violent crackdown by security forces on Wednesday and Thursday of this week, which included the fire of tear gas canisters and plastic bullets and water cannons.
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