ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - The Kurdistan Region witnessed a 13 percent rise in protests for the month of February, a civil rights watchdog reported on Monday.
“Compared to the protest activities of the previous month (January), which numbered 48, there has been a 13 percent increase,” read a statement from Alliance 19, adding that “the most common protests were for salaries (41 percent of all demands), employment (17 percent), and services (9 percent).”
Sulaimani province saw the lion's share of demonstrations, according to the statistics, while Erbil came in second, with around half the numbers. Duhok and Halabja provinces came third and fourth, respectively.
“Last February, the largest strike of teachers and employees was organized in Sulaimani city, which continued from January 28 to February 11, 2025. Later, based on the demands of various social groups, they ended their hunger strike during a large mass demonstration,” Alliance 19 wrote.
Alliance 19 is a human rights monitor consisting of advocates and civil society organizations. It is supervised by the Metro Center for Journalists’ Rights and Advocacy.
In late February, a group of teachers and public sector employees blocked the passage of oil trucks through the Sulaimani-Arbat road but allowed other vehicles through. The protests escalated when demonstrators and truck drivers clashed, leading to multiple injuries and prompting Kurdish security forces to step in.
Earlier that month, protesting teachers and employees in Sulaimani suspended a two-week-long hunger strike over unpaid salaries, but most schools in Sulaimani and Halabja remain closed.
Security forces also blocked striking teachers from entering Erbil to protest outside the United Nations compound that month at the Degala checkpoint and also used tear gas to push protesters back.
Erbil authorities claimed that the protests were aimed at harming the city’s stability, with Governor Omed Khoshnaw accusing “ill-intentioned” actors of fueling the protests, saying it was Baghdad, not Erbil, that was oppressing the Kurdistan Region’s civil servants.
“Teachers, salaried employees, and all of the people in the Kurdistan Region are dissatisfied, but their dissatisfaction is with Baghdad. Baghdad is oppressing us,” Khoshnaw said in a presser at the time.
Efforts by both the federal government and the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) to address the salary crisis resulted in a new agreement in early February regarding the payment of the Region’s share in the 2025 federal budget.
The KRG’s hardships worsened in March 2023 after oil exports from the Kurdistan Region through the Iraq-Turkey pipeline were halted when Ankara lost an international arbitration case against Baghdad for allowing Erbil to begin independent oil exports in 2014.
The Iraqi parliament passed an amendment to the federal budget in February to increase transportation and production fees paid to oil producers in the Kurdistan Region, clearing a major hurdle for exports to resume, which is set to boost the Kurdistan Region's income.
Oil producers have said that they are ready to resume exports but first need a formal agreement about payments.