ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – Iraq’s anti-government demonstrations have seen 528 protesters killed and 24,000 more injured since they began on October 1, the Iraqi High Commission for Human Rights (IHCHR) said this week.
Over the course of the nationwide protests, 2,800 people have been detained, 38 of whom remain in detention, the IHCHR said in a statement sent to media outlets. It further revealed that 79 people have been kidnapped since protests began; 22 have been released. According to the figures, 17 security force members have been killed.
“We hope #PM #designate will depend on some #advisors familiar with #human_rights instead of relying on #security leaders only while dealing with the #protests, the file that were the #worse from human rights aspects in the last few months,” IHCHR commissioner Ali al- Bayati said in a Tuesday tweet.
IHCHR is a government-funded body, but operates independently. Tuesday’s figures are the first to have been published by the organisation since December.
The body has reportedly been under government pressure since protests began. It says that hospitals and government departments have been uncooperative in their collation of casualty numbers.
Iraq’s protests emerged on October 1, 2019 to demand an end to corruption, cronyism, and an overhaul of the post-2003 political ruling class. Protests have been met with deadly crackdown, including the fire of live rounds of ammunition and military-grade tear gas canisters.
Adil Abdul-Mahdi - now Iraq’s caretaker prime minister - resigned in December amid violence against protestors. After weeks of contention, Mohammed Tawfiq Allawi was tasked on February 1 by President Barham Salih to form a new government.
As government formation talks continue, so too does the crackdown on the persistent protesters.
Footage from Baghdad's Khilani Square on Wednesday shows security forces firing tear gas to disperse crowds; gunshots were also heard. Bayati announced on Wednesday that an Iraqi Army soldier, who had fought ISIS in the ranks of the Iran-backed Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), was killed by gunfire in Khilani on Wednesday as he participated in the protests in his time off work.
Security forces have recently begun using hunting rifles, protesters and human rights groups have said, causing painful injuries.
Women took to the streets of the holy city of Najaf on Wednesday, protesting to demand gender equality and in defiance of Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr’s calls for protests to be gender-segregated.
"No voice can muffle the voices of women," 22-year-old marcher Saba told AFP.
"We started demonstrating to bring down the regime. Now we're holding women-only marches because they've insulted us," Saba added, referring to Sadr’s comments.
"We are free. We don't go out on the orders of a cleric or stop because of some decree," Nada Qassem, a university professor in her 50s told AFP.
Bayati announced on Wednesday that an Iraqi Army soldier, who had fought ISIS in the ranks of the Iran-backed Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), was killed by gunfire in Khilani Square on Wednesday as he participated in the protests on his time off work.
Reporting from protest epicenter Tahrir Square on Wednesday, Rudaw English correspondent Lawk Ghafuri said daytime protests had shrunk in recent weeks following Sadr’s withdrawal of support from the squares. The square grew busier as night fell, however.
Drawing parallels with repression faced by protest movements elsewhere, Amnesty International on Wednesday released a 2019 annual report on the human rights situation in the Middle East and North Africa region, branding it “a year of defiance”.
“In an inspiring display of defiance and determination, crowds from Algeria, to Iran, Iraq and Lebanon poured into the streets … these protesters have proven that they will not be intimidated into silence by their governments,” Amnesty said.
“In Iraq where at least 500 died in demonstrations in 2019, protesters showed tremendous resilience, defying live ammunition, deadly sniper attacks and military tear gas grenades deployed at short range causing gruesome injuries,” it added.
