A statement issued by a Sadr loyalist on Sunday urged protesters to keep the premises clean, organise unarmed security patrols and to keep the sit-in going by operating in shifts. The Hashed - along with tribes and the wider security forces - were among elements Sadr urged to join his protest initiative on Sunday. The rival bloc includes lawmakers from the party of Sadr's longtime foe, ex-prime minister Nuri al-Maliki, and also represents the pro-Iran former paramilitary group Hashed al-Shaabi, now integrated into the regular forces. The immediate trigger for the occupation of parliament was a decision by the Coordination Framework to nominate former cabinet minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani for the prime minister's post.
That stance earned a rebuke from his principal Shiite political opponents, the pro-Iran Coordination Framework, which described Sadr's comments as "a call for a coup against the people, the state and its institutions". to support the reformist revolutionaries". Sadr on Sunday took to Twitter to laud a "spontaneous revolution in the Green Zone - a first step," he said, towards "an extraordinary opportunity for a fundamental change." - 'Coup against the people' - He called on "everyone. Analysts have said Sadr, a mercurial cleric who once led a militia against US and Iraqi government forces, is using protests to signal that his views must be respected in establishing a new government, amid a power struggle between his bloc and rival Shiite factions. "The politicians currently in parliament have brought us nothing." In multi-confessional and multi-ethnic Iraq, government formation has involved complex negotiations since a 2003 US-led invasion toppled dictator Saddam Hussein. "We were hoping for the best but we got the worst," said one of the protesters, Abdelwahab al-Jaafari, 45, a day labourer with nine children. On Sunday, the protesters - who had bedded down overnight with blankets - appeared in no mood to leave, as volunteers distributed soup, hard-boiled eggs, bread and water. The health ministry said at least 100 protesters and 25 security personnel were hurt in the confrontation, prompting the European Union to express concern over "escalation". Despite tear gas, water cannon and temperatures that touched 47 degrees Celsius (116 degrees Fahrenheit), his followers stormed the legislature on Saturday after pulling down heavy concrete barricades on roads to Baghdad's fortified Green Zone, home to government buildings and embassies. Nearly 10 months after elections, the oil-rich country is still without a new government due to the repeated failure of negotiations and the en-masse resignation last month of Sadr's bloc - the largest in parliament. Powerful Iraqi Shiite preacher Moqtada Sadr Sunday urged other factions to support a protest that has seen his followers occupy parliament in a dispute over who should name the next prime minister.
0 kommentar(er)
