In early October 2019, in Baghdad’s Tahrir Square and in many of Iraq’s other major cities, young Iraqis took the streets, chanting slogans such as “with life and blood we defend you, Iraq.” To those unfamiliar with the specifics of political and social life in the Middle East, where sectarian divisions often trump national identities, this may not have seemed like a big deal. It may have seemed, in fact, like just one more of the countless mass protests that have engulfed the region over the past decade.

In both respects, however, these observers would be wrong. The chants were a big deal. And the protests, while not entirely unprecedented, were nevertheless a sharp break from the norm. Because, for the first time in recent memory, Iraqis weren’t demanding their rights under the banner of any specific religious or ethnic group, but their rights as Iraqi citizens. And they weren’t demanding privileges—they were demanding the fall of a system that has worked to keep them apart, and that has been feeding into the pockets of corrupt elites to the detriment of ordinary citizens.

To understand why this embrace of nationality is so important, however, a look into the recent past is necessary. Under Iraq’s current model of ethno-sectarian balancing [paywall], established after the United States-led invasion of 2003, coalition governments hand out ministerial positions and budgets according to the proportion of the country’s sectarian populations—Shiite or Sunni Muslim Arabs, and Kurds. This has led to staggering corruption in which the elite’s control over government ministries, major enterprises, and media has actively worked to maintain the status quo. Spawned in the aftermath foreign occupation, this form of governance has benefitted few and served as little more than a failed attempt for perpetual ceasefire, rather than a sustainable system of government meeting the needs of the Iraqi people.
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Corruption and sectarian favoritism in the public sector have played a major role in entrenching sectarian division among Iraqis and have led to rampant unemployment and lack of access to basic services. Transparency International ranks Iraq as the 18th most corrupt country in the world; according to official figures cited in a report from the Telegraph, since 2004, a remarkable $450 billion in public funds have been unaccounted for. Meanwhile, about a quarter of the country’s young population is unemployed, while access to clean water and electricity is unreliable at best. 

Amnesty International has gathered detailed eyewitness testimony of the coordinated attack by unidentified gunmen in Baghdad last night, which claimed at least 20 lives and left more than 130 injured.

The organization also verified footage from Baghdad that corroborated testimony of witnesses who described the arrival of fleets of gunmen.
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Witnesses describe how “endless gunmen” arrived in pick-up trucks and minivans whilst others who had mingled with the crowd shot and stabbed protesters and attacked and set fire to parts of the Garage al-Sinak building.

​“The testimony we have a gathered leaves little doubt that this was a well-coordinated attack and raises serious questions as to how heavily-armed gunmen in a fleet of vehicles were seemingly able to pass through Baghdad’s checkpoints and inflict such a bloody onslaught,” said Lynn Maalouf, Middle East Research Director at Amnesty International.

Deaths and detentions stir anger and undermine leaders’ efforts to stifle dissent

On walls and lampposts in the heart of Iraq’s capital, vying for attention alongside banners calling for the government’s downfall, are images of the missing.

The posters appeal for information about young men who have disappeared during two months of antigovernment protests and a security crackdown that has shocked many Iraqis inured to years of war and violence.

The crackdown has left nearly 400 people dead and many more in the hands of any of a number of factions of the country’s fragmented security forces. For some, it recalled the reign of Saddam Hussein, when dissent was ruthlessly repressed.

But under today’s divided Iraqi leadership, the use of force has stoked dissent.

“I hold the government responsible—not only for my son’s fate, but for the fate of all the young men,” said Umm Hassanain, whose 16-year-old son has been missing since Oct. 25, when he left home for Tahrir Square, the center of protests in Baghdad.

​The leader of a human trafficking gang which charged desperate migrants up to £8,500 each to smuggle them into the UK in the backs of refrigerated lorries has been jailed for four years in Spain.

​Iraqi-born Shwana Rafiq put the lives of entire families at risk by hiding them in trailers heading for Britain where temperatures never got above 40F (4C).

The 36-year-old was sentenced after he admitted playing a lead role in an international criminal gang which organised a 'large number' of operations involving the smuggling of Kurds.

Spanish police believe Shwana's gang were responsible for smuggling more than 100 people into the UK between 2017 and 2018, earning up to £850,000. 

Rights groups have condemned the government for allowing an excessive use force against anti-gov't demonstrators.

​Hamza was running for his life the day he was shot in the back by Iraqi security forces while taking part in the country's anti-government protests. Like most afternoons since the start of the second wave of demonstrations on October 25, he took to the streets of Baghdad with thousands of others, to demand the overhaul of the country's political system.

​Years of public discontent came to a head in October when demonstrations demanding an end to government corruption, foreign interference in Iraqi affairs, unemployment and a lack of basic facilities sparked Iraq's largest protests in years.

What began as peaceful demonstrations on October 1 have been mired by the killing of more than 430 people and the wounding of 15,000 - including Hamza.

Unlike the previous week, on November 4, the 17-year-old would not walk off Ahrar bridge, where some of the more violent clashes have taken place.

​Raises Concerns Around Command Control

​Security forces across Iraq are using lethal force against protesters despite orders to stop, Human Rights Watch said today. The orders to stop using live ammunition were issued by Adil Abd Al-Mahdi, who resigned as prime minister on November 29, 2019, but remains in office in a caretaker status. The authorities should take urgent measures to stop security forces from using excessive force against protesters.

On December 1, Iraq’s parliament accepted Abd Al-Mahdi’s resignation, due to the ongoing demonstrations. The contrast between his statements and the continued rising death toll, particularly in southern cities, raises concerns that the government is incapable of reining in abusive forces, including groups formally under the prime minister’s control.

“The government needs to put a stop to the unlawful killing and to explain why it is unable to control its own forces,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. “The contrast between the government’s statements and what security forces are doing on the ground suggests that Iraq’s commander in chief is not in charge of his own forces.”

A spokesperson for the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights said on November 29 that by its count, at least 354 people had been killed and 8,104 injured since protests began on October 1, but that the actual total was most likely higher. In a November 28 statement, UN Secretary-General António Guterres condemned security forces’ use of live ammunition against demonstrators.

Protesters in Iraq have won their first big success by forcing the resignation of the Iraqi prime minister, Adel Abdul-Mahdi, after the killing of 45 unarmed protesters by the Iraqi security forces in a single day. As the news spread, the crack of celebratory fireworks replaced that of gunshots in Baghdad’s Tahrir Square, which has been the centre of demonstrations since they began two months ago.

The impending departure of Mahdi is a symbolic victory for the protests, but too many people have been killed for it to quell what is close to a mass uprising by the majority Shia community. He had proved an ineffectual leader and the entire ruling elite in Iraq is probably too corrupt and too determined to hang on to power to make the radical reforms demanded by the protesters.

The announcement that the prime minister was stepping down came after 36 hours in which the security forces had switched from killing individual demonstrators to massacres on a larger scale – with as many as 50 people shot dead on a bridge in the southern city of Nasiriya – bringing the number killed to 408, as well as thousands more wounded, since 1 October.
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Compare this horrific casualty list over eight weeks with that in Hong Kong, where just one protester has been killed and one has died accidentally since protests started six months ago. Compare also the vast and sympathetic publicity given to the Hong Kong protests  with the limited interest in the savage and unprecedented government clampdown in Iraq.

At least seven people, including a boy of 16, were reported missing since October 7 from or near Baghdad’s Tahrir Square, where they were participating in ongoing protests in Iraq’s capital, Human Rights Watch said today.

​Four were still missing as of December 2. The families said they visited police stations and government offices seeking information without success, and the government took no tangible measures to locate their relatives. It is unclear whether government security or armed groups carried out the abductions. In another two cases, security forces arrested and arbitrarily held protest supporters.

Prime Minister Adil Abd Al-Mahdi announced he was submitting his resignation as prime minister to parliament on November 29.

“Whether the government or armed groups are behind the abductions in Baghdad, the government bears the responsibility for keeping people safe from such targeting,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. “Authorities are failing Iraqi citizens by allowing armed forces to abduct people, and it will be up to the government to take swift action against these abuses.”

The ongoing protests in Iraq indicate that the country’s youth, who are overwhelmingly Shia, have become disillusioned with status quo politics of control by Islamist political parties and with government corruption and ineptitude. Following the 2003 American-led invasion, Iraq became a place of instability and chaos, with Iran-supported militias feasting on government largesse and national resources, specifically oil.

A report by the Iraqi parliament says that $250 billion has been siphoned off public coffers since 2004. Iraq scored 18 out of 100 (with 0 as highly corrupt) on Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index in 2018. Indeed, protests and opposition to the government of Prime Minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi, as a representative of the current state of affairs, were inevitable and imminent.

Over the last month, hundreds of thousands of protesters have braved security forces and militias and demonstrated in the streets to demand a new system of government that can address the many ills besetting Iraq’s society and its economy. They have been met with brutal force that so far has killed some 320 protesters and injured thousands more since October 1.

​But these protests are not solely the result of current conditions; years of government mismanagement, sectarian politics, problems of political patronage, graft, and the general collapse of good governance have also played a big role. Especially egregious has been the legacy of former Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, who was in office during 2006-2014. The last year of his reign witnessed the collapse of Iraq’s armed forces while ragtag contingents of Islamic State fighters swept northern and western Iraq and reached the outskirts of Baghdad.

Iraq’s prime minister said Friday he would submit his resignation to parliament, a day after more than 40 people were killed by security forces and following calls by Iraq’s top Shiite cleric for lawmakers to withdraw support.
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The move by Adel Abdul-Mahdi 13 months after he took over as prime minister triggered celebrations by anti-government protesters who have been camped out in Baghdad’s Tahrir Square for nearly two months. Young men and women broke out in song and dance as news of his imminent resignation reached the square, the capital’s largest.

In a statement, Abdul-Mahdi said he had “listened with great concern” to Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani’s sermon and made his decision in response to his call and in order to “facilitate and hasten its fulfillment as soon as possible.”

“I will submit to parliament an official memorandum resigning from the current prime ministry so that the parliament can review its choices,” he said. Abdul-Mahdi was appointed prime minister just over a year ago as a consensus candidate between political blocs.