{"id":14277,"date":"2018-09-08T02:22:48","date_gmt":"2018-09-08T02:22:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=14277"},"modified":"2018-09-08T02:22:48","modified_gmt":"2018-09-08T02:22:48","slug":"sistani-demands-end-to-basra-violence-as-deadly-protests-rage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=14277","title":{"rendered":"Sistani demands end to Basra violence as deadly protests rage"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

\nBASRA: Iraqi religious leader Ayatollah Ali Sistani has called for a political shake-up in Baghdad and a halt to violence against demonstrators on Friday, after days of deadly protests tore through the main city in the south and shut the country\u2019s main seaport.<\/p>\n

\nAyatollah Ali Sistani placed blame for the unrest with political leaders and said a new government should be formed, \u201cdifferent from its predecessors.\u201d<\/p>\n

\nAt least 10 protesters have died since Monday in Basra, a city of 2 million people where residents who complain that infrastructure has collapsed \u2014 leaving them with no power or safe drinking water in the heat of summer \u2014 have torched government buildings and clashed with security forces.<\/p>\n

\nOn Thursday, demonstrators escalated the unrest by shutting down Umm Qasr, the country\u2019s main seaport, 60 km south of Basra, which handles the vast majority of imports into a country dependent on food bought abroad to feed its 37 million citizens.<\/p>\n

\nIt remained shut on Friday, local officials and security sources said. Iraq\u2019s oil exports, which are carried out from offshore platforms, were unaffected.<\/p>\n

\nInside Basra, protesters stormed several provincial government buildings, torched the headquarters of the local government and blocked main roads in the city center.<\/p>\n

\nIraq\u2019s politicians have so far failed to agree on a new government after an inconclusive election in May. The new Parliament finally met on Monday for the first time, but broke up after a day with no faction assembling enough votes to elect a speaker much less name the next prime minister.<\/p>\n

\nIn his Friday prayer sermon read out by an aide, Sistani demanded an end to the use of violence against \u201cpeaceful protests\u201d and placed the blame squarely on politicians for corruption and unemployment.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cThe failings of Iraqi political leaders in recent years have caused the anger of people in Basra,\u201d Sistani said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\u201cThis reality cannot change if the next government is formed according to the same criteria adopted when forming previous governments. Pressure must be exerted for the new government to be different from its predecessors.\u201d<\/p>\n

\nParliament\u2019s interim leader summoned lawmakers to an emergency session on Saturday to discuss the unrest.<\/p>\n

\nAlso on Friday, local security sources said protesters stormed the Iranian Consulate in Basra. The consulate is in the upscale neighborhood of Al-Barda\u2019iya, southeast of the city center.<\/p>\n

\nIraqi factions mainly came together during a 2014-2017 war against terrorists who seized large swathes of the country\u2019s north.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\nIts two most influential allies, Washington and Tehran, also backed the Baghdad government despite their deep hostility toward each other.<\/p>\n

\nBut since Daesh was largely defeated last year, other divisions have re-emerged. Shiites in the south, where most of Iraq\u2019s oil wealth is produced, say Baghdad politicians have squandered state funds while leaving them desperate.<\/p>\n

\nMoqtada Sadr,whose electoral bloc came first in May\u2019s election, said on Twitter that Prime Minister Haidar Abadi must release more funds for Basra to improve conditions there.<\/p>\n

\nSadr, the former leader of an anti-American sectarian militia who has reinvented himself as an anti-corruption campaigner, has allied himself with Abadi.<\/p>\n

\nTheir alliance is competing to form a government against a rival bloc backed by Abadi\u2019s predecessor Nuri Al-Maliki and the leader of an Iran-backed Shiite armed group, Hadi Al-Amiri.<\/p>\n

\nSadr called on Thursday for an emergency parliament session and for Abadi and other senior officials to attend. Abadi said he would do so.<\/p>\n

\nAmid the political crisis and worsening protests in Basra, security forces have launched a search operation to determine the source of three mortar shells that landed inside Baghdad’s heavily fortified Green Zone.<\/p>\n

\nIraq\u2019s newParliament faces the twin tasks of rebuilding the north of the country following the war against Daesh and rehabilitating services in the south, where severe water and electricity shortages have fueled protests.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BASRA: Iraqi religious leader Ayatollah Ali Sistani has called for a political shake-up in Baghdad and a halt to violence against demonstrators on Friday, after days of deadly protests tore through the main city in the south and shut the country\u2019s main seaport. Ayatollah Ali Sistani placed blame for the unrest with political leaders and…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":14278,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14277","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle_east_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14277","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14277"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14277\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/14278"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14277"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14277"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14277"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}