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Iraqis end Green Zone protests after issuing demands
[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] Anti-government protesters temporarily ended their mass demonstration in Baghdad's Green Zone on Sunday and began an orderly withdrawal a day after tearing down walls around the government district and invading parliament.Loudspeakers manned by followers of Shiite holy man  Moqtada Tateral-Sadr ... the Iranian catspaw holy man who was 22 years old in 2003 and was nearing 40 in 2010. He spends most of his time in Iran, safely out of the line of fire, where he's learning to be an ayatollah... , who has led the protest movement, announced the disbanding of the protests, which had marked the culmination of months of sit-ins and demonstrations demanding the overhaul of a political system widely seen as corrupt and ineffectual. "We decided to end it now because of the anniversary of Imam (Moussa) al-Kadhim," said Sadiq al-Hashemi, a representative of al-Sadr's office in Baghdad who was present at the protests. Al-Hashemi said al-Sadr made the decision in order to allow Iraqi security forces to protect the thousands of pilgrims who are expected to walk from across Iraq to the shrine of the 8th-century Imam in Baghdad. Speaking to Al Arabiya News Channel from Iraq, Awad Al-Awadi, a deputy in the Iraqi parliament representing the Al-Ahrar bloc of the Sadrist Movement, said that a pending solution "depends on the political blocs first." "A solution depends on the political blocs, first, and depends on the courage of the head of the government, and parliament speaker. The parliament speaker today said he would dot the i's and cross the t's towards reform. To achieve reform, the political blocs should abandon their gains, and quotas, and their ministers," he told Al Arabiya. Earlier on Sunday, Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi ordered authorities to arrest and prosecute those among the protesters who had attacked security forces, politicians and damaged state property after breaking into the Green Zone. Posted by: Fred 2016-05-03 |
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