Sulaimaniyah, April 20: Authorities in the Iraqi province of Sulaimaniyah slapped a ban on unauthorised protests from Tuesday, after dozens of injuries and deaths in near-daily rallies over the past two months.
Demonstrators in Sulaimaniyah and the eponymous provincial capital that is the second-largest city in the autonomous northern Kurdistan region, have been calling for an end to official corruption and the resignation of the regional government.
They also want an investigation into the deaths of three young demonstrators in clashes with security forces in February.
“The Security Committee of Sulaimaniyah province decided to ban any unauthorised demonstrations in the province, starting tomorrow,” provincial authorities said in a statement issued late Monday.
The statement warned of unspecified “legal action against protest organisers” who violate the ban.
Hundreds of security forces were deployed in the streets of Sulaimaniyah on Tuesday, but that did not prevent a brief confrontation with stone-throwing protesters who dispersed after police opened fire, witnesses said.
“In clashes on Sunday and Monday between demonstrators and security forces 95 people were wounded, 16 of them by bullets, including one policeman,” said Raykot Hama Rashid, head of the the city’s main hospital.
Protests in Iraq against poor supply of basic services such as electricity grew after uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt toppled entrenched regimes in those countries and spread across the Arab world early this year.
Since then, protests have erupted in different parts of Iraq at least every week, especially in the Kurdish north, which is dominated by two parties that maintain a stranglehold on the region’s politics.
But unlike the unrest and uprisings in other Arab countries, protesters in Iraq have not been demanding regime change, only reforms and better living conditions.
Earlier this month, Amnesty International urged Iraqi authorities to stop intimidation and the use of lethal force against peaceful protesters demanding reforms, jobs, better services and an end to corruption.
-Agencies