Cautious calm returned to central Baghdad, a night after bloody clashes pitted security forces and demonstrators on Sinak Bridge against each other. The clashes resulted in the death of Iraqi activist Hassan al-Zaydi and the injury of 27 protesters.
The bridge is close to the capital’s central Tahrir Square where thousands have been camped out for months, with recent clashes causing the authorities to restrict access to the crossing. The protester died after a tear gas canister was launched directly at his neck, the medical sources said.
“Saboteurs attacked the barricades in the Sinak bridge area and security forces have been using non-lethal methods to stop them for hours,” said a spokesman for the prime minister.
Mass protests have gripped Iraq since Oct. 1 and protesters, most of them young, are demanding an overhaul of a political system they see as profoundly corrupt and keeping most Iraqis in poverty.
More than 450 people have been killed.
Despite numbers recently dwindling, protesters took to the streets again last week, determined to keep up the momentum of their protests despite attention turning to the threat of a US-Iran conflict after Washington killed Tehran’s top general in an airstrike inside Iraq.
Gunmen killed two local journalists covering protests last Friday in the southern city of Basra.
Meanwhile, demonstrators in Nasiriyah had given Iraqi authorities one week to execute demands laid out by protesters. These demands include appointing a new independent prime minister, holding those involved in the killing of demonstrators accountable, and passing a new law for early elections under UN supervision.
With authorities stalling on achieving the demonstrators’ demands and the deadline passing without any progress, it is expected that Sunday and Monday will witness an unprecedented escalation in which demonstrators in Baghdad and central and southern Iraq governorates will carry out a massive campaign to cut off most vital and international roads all over the provinces.
The roadblocks are expected to be set up coincidentally with universities and schools going on strike.
This article has been adapted from its original source.
