Like, above in the Iraqi Spring MC photo, in Jalawlaa. They protested in Baiji, Falluja, Samarra, Tikirt, Baquba, and Kirkuk.
They protested despite attempts to stop them. National Iraqi News Agency notes, "Security forces closed off all roads leading to the sit-in yard north of Ramadi before noon today." Despite this, NINA notes that "thousands of people flocked to the main sit-in squares north of Ramadi and eastern Falluja." Iraqi Spring MC reports that the Baghdad mosque was raided and one was raided in Nineveh Province. Arbitrary arrests of activists are taking place in Diyala Province and Nouri's forces disrupted morning prayers in Muqdadiya,
How does Nouri get away with raiding mosques?
Raiding a mosques?
That is beyond offensive.
How does he get away with it? Lack of attention from the international media.
That's the protesters in Falluja asking that the "BBC Make the Unmissable, Unmissable!!" Will the BBC cover today's protests or will it again remain silent?
In Samarra, NINA reports, Sheikh Hussein Ghazi declared that Iraq ranked "first in the world in human rights violations and corruption and criminality against the Iraqi people." And the outlet notes that Sheikh Yunis al-Hamdani in Falluja observed that Nouri bears "responsibility for assassinations and executions against Sunnis" and called on the Kurds to join in the cry to stop the mass executions.
On the topic of violence, National Iraqi News Agency notes that a Baquba bombing has left a number of people injured, a Hilla roadside bombing has claimed 5 lives and left two more people injured, and a Tikrit sticky bombing claimed 1 life. All Iraq News adds that seven people were injured in the Baquba bombing, a Mahawil bombing claimed 3 lives and left seven more people injured, and, dropping back to last night, a farmer and his son were kidnapped from their Samarra farm. Qassim Abdul-Zahra (AP) notes that a Baghdad bombing (Abu Ghraib) claimed the lives of 3 Iraqi soldiers. In addition, AFP's Prashant Rao Tweets:
Prashant Rao
.@USEmbBaghdad security message - 'Rocket casing discovered near the US consulate in Arbil' in Iraq's autonomous Kurdistan
At Al Jazeera, Dr. Larbi Sadiki weighs in on the state of Iraq:
Prime Minister Al-Maliki's democratic credentials are in doubt, just as is Iraq's own autonomy which is not answerable to the local demos, part of which is less equal as sectarianism rears its ugly head in a nation threatened by dismemberment. Iraq's modicum of democracy is stained with human rights violations, absence of adherents of non-confessional ideologies and politics, and the second-class citizenship threatening minorities of all kind.
A "Spring" that never was: may be one way of describing one of the biggest political miscalculations in military history since Bonaparte's invasion of Egypt in 1798. Democracy, whatever that meant for Bush and Blair, is only procedural in Iraq. The linkage between Iraq and terrorism in 2003 was never found but today is a reality. And the Iranian side, amongst other ideological foes, which the US' neocons sought to weaken, is the biggest beneficiary of the war on which the Americans spend more than $800bn, had more than 4,000 US soldiers killed, more than 30,000 injured, and a whole world traumatised.
The only difference is that Saddam Hussein was eliminated. Yes, good riddance - but the prisons of Iraq, the torture, the record of human rights violations, and the "failed" state that replaced Saddam's "pariah" and "rogue" state is questionable on many fronts. And Kurdistan, in the north, is the only place where there is some normalcy, as a definite experiment in nation and would-be state-building are in the offing.
Sawsan al-Assaf and Saad Jawad (Middle East Online) also examine the state of Iraq and offer these bullet points:
• Iraq is now among the ten most corrupt countries in the
world, ranking 169 out of 176 countries in 2012. (International
Transparency).
• Iraq is one of the world’s failing
states. (Foreign Affairs Journal, 3rd of 149 countries; 2011 Global
Peace Index, 2nd of 153).
• Iraq is one of the world’s most unsafe countries. (Global Peace Index 2010).
•
With some 4.7 million, Iraq has the biggest number of internal and
external refugees. (UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR)
• Baghdad became the worst city in the world to live in (MERSIR).
•
After eight years of occupation, 40% of the Iraqi population could not
drink clean water, 27% were living under the poverty line and 30% had no
medical attention whatsoever (Amnesty International Report 2010).
•
Iraq has 4 million orphans and more than 2 million widows. The 2012
Human Rights Report concluded that “violence against women and girls
continued to be a serious problem across Iraq,” while the 2012 UNAMI
Report stated its “concern about the respect for the rights and status
of women in Iraq, in particular in regard to gender based violence,
so-called ‘honour’ crimes, trafficking and domestic violence.”
•
The number of people killed was estimated as more than 600,000 people
by the respected Lancet Journal in 2007. That would mean the number has
exceeded 1 million by now. Among them were more than 450 scientist and
university professors (see Baker, Raymond, Ismael, Shereen and Ismael,
Tareq, Cultural Cleansing In Iraq, Pluto Press, London & New York,
2010, p.4 & p.p 263-281).
• The Iraqi government
was determined to be a sectarian government presiding over a country
virtually divided on sectarian lines (Iraqi Study Group-Baker-Hamilton
report, 2006).
The e-mail address for this site is common_ills@yahoo.com.
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