Thousands of protesters took to the streets on Sunday to mark one year since mass anti-government demonstrations swept Baghdad and Iraq’s south, sparking hope for change and calls to end to rampant corruption.
Protesters marched in the capital and several southern cities including Najaf, Nasiriyah and Basra to renew demands proclaimed a year ago to bring an end to corruption by politicians.
Mustafa Hussein, in his 20’s, participated in the demonstrations last year and returned to Baghdad’s Tahrir Square on Sunday. He said little had changed.
“Our demands that we wrote with the blood of our martyrs are still on the lists of officials without implementation,” he said.
More than 500 people were killed during the months-long movement that began last year, many of them protesters shot by Iraqi security forces who used live ammunition and tear gas to disperse crowds.
Often tear gas cannisters struck the heads of demonstrators, killing them instantly. By February, the protests had petered out in the wake of coronavirus lockdowns and restrictions, prompting activists to call off mass marches and sit-ins. An order by the Baghdad Operations Command, which oversees security forces in the capital, kept many hundreds more demonstrators from entering the city on Sunday from the provinces of Babylon and Diwanieh.
In Baghdad’s Tahrir Square, which has been the epicenter of the protest movement, Iraqi youth carried banners with portraits of those killed by Iraqi security forces.
The protesters erected tents and created their version of utopia replete with food vendors, cinemas and bookshops.