At least 100 demonstrators and 25 members of the security forces were injured during protests on Saturday.
Tension rises in Iraq. Early this Saturday thousands of supporters of the influential Shiite political leader Moqtada Sadr re-entered the Iraqi Parliament after a day of protests in a country plunged into a deep political crisis. At least 100 protesters and 25 members of the security forces were injured during protests in which police fired tear gas at stones from the crowd.
The president of parliament, Mohamed Al Halbusi, announced in a statement “the suspension of all parliamentary sessions until further notice” and called on the protesters to “preserve state property.” On Friday night, supporters of Moqtada Sadr ransacked the offices of Maliki’s Daawa party in Baghdad, as well as the offices of the Hikma Current, the formation of Shiite politician Ammar Al Hakim, which is part of the Coordination Framework, according to a source. of security.
The situation in the country worries the European Union, which this Sunday issued a statement expressing its concern about the wave of protests. “We are concerned about the ongoing protests and their possible escalation in Baghdad. We urge all parties to exercise restraint to avoid further violence,” they report from Brussels. The organization “invites the political forces to solve the problems through a constructive political dialogue within the constitutional framework,” adds the note, which ends by recalling the “right to peaceful protest” although always from the “respect for the laws and state institutions”.
The UN has also reacted to the destabilization of the country. Thus, its secretary general, António Guterres, who has called for “immediate measures to reduce tension” and the formation of “an effective national government, through inclusive and peaceful dialogue, that can promptly comply with the demands for reform” .
The cleric, whose Sayyrun coalition won the legislative elections last year, has spent months denouncing the inability of the rest of the political forces to form a new government, and has assured that the pro-Iranian group to which the candidate Al Sudani belongs, Marco de Coordinación, a large defeated in the elections, should not have a presence in the new Executive. However, and after the resignation in June of the Sadrite parliamentary bloc due to the blockage in the negotiations, the pro-Iranian group decided to take a step forward and present the former Minister of Labor and Social Affairs as a candidate.
Iraq is already going through its longest period of government negotiations since the first elections held in 2005 under the auspices of the United States, a situation that has led both the population and the country’s political class to a state of permanent frustration and prevented the OPEC’s second largest oil producer to reap the corresponding benefits from rising crude prices.
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