Iraqi men demonstrate in the southern oil-rich city of Basra, the heart of recent protests against power shortages, graft and other social ills, on August 10, 2018 Iraq has been gripped by protests over power outages, unemployment, state mismanagement and a lack of clean water. Photo: Haidar Mohammed Ali | AFP
ERBIL, Kurdistan Region — Iraqis across the southern Shiite provinces continue protesting for more than two months, demanding services, jobs and an end for corruption. Security forces blocked the roads to Iraq’s famous Tahrir square on Friday to deter protestors.
Rudaw’s Mustafa Goran covered the protests in Baghdad’s Tahrir square. Tens were in the square in a bid to protest the conditions in the country.
“The security forces started, today afternoon, cutting some roads leading to the Tahrir Square at the center of the capital Baghdad, as a precaution for new protests in the square,” a source told Baghdad today.
The source claimed that the security forces had intensified their measures around the square in a bid to deter protestors. The hurdles set up by the security forces included fences and iron barriers leading to the square.
“Protests in the Tahrir Square at the center of capital Baghdad started retreating from the square,” a security source told Baghdad Today.
Baghdad’s protests were accompanied by protests in southern Diwanya and oil-rich Basra provinces, where the flames of the protests ignited.
Abadi has promised jobs, improved services, and the completion of stalled projects in a bid to appease the protestors.
The issues run much deeper with provinces claiming they are not receiving their requisite share of the petroleum revenues, and foreign labor is being preferred to domestic.
Iraq is yet to form a new government after the release of official results of the manual recount of the ballots cast in the parliamentary election on May 12. Analysts do not predict a new government being formed before the end of the year.
Protests began on July 9.
Comments
Rudaw moderates all comments submitted on our website. We welcome comments which are relevant to the article and encourage further discussion about the issues that matter to you. We also welcome constructive criticism about Rudaw.
To be approved for publication, however, your comments must meet our community guidelines.
We will not tolerate the following: profanity, threats, personal attacks, vulgarity, abuse (such as sexism, racism, homophobia or xenophobia), or commercial or personal promotion.
Comments that do not meet our guidelines will be rejected. Comments are not edited – they are either approved or rejected.
Post a comment