KRG security forces have permission to prevent unlicensed protests: statement

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region — The Kurdistan Regional Government’s (KRG) top security body at the Ministry of Interior warned on Wednesday night that unlicensed protests will no longer be tolerated, as demonstrations in the Kurdistan Region continue.

“Security forces will no longer allow unlicensed protests to continue and lead to chaos and violence,” reads a statement from the ministry’s High Security Committee.  

“From now on, all kinds of unlicensed gatherings and protests, as well as the damaging of public and private properties - which serve people - are banned. The security forces are open-handed to prevent them and act in the framework of law,” it added. 

Protests broke out last Wednesday in the city of Sulaimani, with teachers and other civil servants demanding their salaries after going unpaid for most of this year amid budget disputes between Erbil and Baghdad.

Protests have spread across numerous towns in the province, as well as in Halabja province and the Garmiyan administration, with at least seven protesters and one Peshmerga reportedly killed during clashes on Monday and Tuesday. A large number of party and government offices have been set alight. 

Despite a 24-hour traffic ban issued by the Sulaimani province high crisis cell for Wednesday, protests resumed in a number of towns in the Kurdistan Region, including in Arbat town.

Daban Mohammed, mayor of the town, told Rudaw English late Wednesday that a young man, aged between 12-13, was shot in the head near the offices of the ruling Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP). Mohammed Omar is unconscious and in intense care at Sulaimani Emergency Hospital. 

Another Peshmerga, Hamza Mohammed, died of a stroke while dispersing protestors blocking the Dukan-Sulaimani road near Sulaimani province's Qamchwgha village on Wednesday, Dukan mayor Sirwan Sarhad told Rudaw.

Eleven people attempting to protest in Erbil province's Choman district have been arrested, Sabah Wallashi, the head of Qasre's Asayesh, told Rudaw.

"These young people were planning to set tyres on fire and block Ballayan [valley] and Qasre road," he said. 

“Legal procedures will be taken by security forces against all those people who have damaged public property and all those who have incited them,” reads the statement from the security committee.

Kurdistan Region Prime Minister Masrour Barzani said in a speech on Wednesday that “the protest that started in Sulaimani and Halabja were peaceful. However, they were taken advantage of.”