Peaceful Movement in Iraq Tweets:
We're talking about what? Dropping back to Saturday night:
What do the militias do? Terrorize. In other news, Zhelwan Z. Wali (RUDAW) reports that twelve Sunnis were kidnapped in Salahaddain Province Saturday. Of the twelve, ten have now turned up -- ten corpses. Oh, and, by the way, Khaled Jabbarra ("head of Sunni political party Wafd and a member of Salahaddin's tribal forces") reminds RUDAW "that the security of Balad is under the control of Asaib Ahl al-Haq, a faction of the Popular Mobilisation Forces (PMF, or Hashd al-Shaabi)." He is quoted stating, "The PMF is responsible for the security of this area and we call on the Prime Minister [Mustafa al-Kadhimi] to send the interior minister to investigate the incident and find out the fate of the remaining two people."
The response? ANADOLU AGENCY notes, "Iraq's prime minister on Sunday pledged to provide protection to local residents in the northern Saladin province, a day after the killing of eight civilians by gunmen." So he gave his promise to protect the local residents . . . and then he rushed off to Paris. He plans to visit France, Germany and the United Kingdom. 'Stay safe, Salahaddain!' Stay safe while he's out of the country because, well, he apparently had better things to do.
That attitude explains a lot of the hostility aimed at Mustafa on social media right now.
As we noted Saturday night, the KDP (Kurdistan Democratic Party) suffered an attack on Saturday. Militia members attacked the KDP's Baghdad office.
US State Dept spokesperson Morgan Ortagus Tweeted the following:
Bashir Haddad is both a member of the Iraqi Parliament and of the KDP. Shahyan Tahseen (RUDAW) speaks with Bashir:
Kurdish parties denounced the incident after it happened. Have you received any other position on the matter?
The Kurdistani blocs and some Sunni factions condemned the attack. Some
Shiite parties, blocs and individuals condemned it too. The protesters
said the day before the demonstration that it would be peaceful, but we
saw what happened. They burned the building and the flag of Kurdistan
too. They even threatened many Kurdish families. The signs suggest that
it's not just about the [KDP] building, but Kurds and the Kurdistan
Region too. So we must keep our eyes open, stay vigilant and stand
together in the face of such actions.
What could you, the Iraqi parliament, do to stand against the burning of a party office, or the burning of a flag?
We've made our position on several [similar] events clear, and we've
spoken to the Iraqi government about them. It is the government's
responsibility to protect party offices, not just the offices of the
KDP. As long as they are part of the political system of Iraq and are
licensed, the government must protect them. The burned building belongs
to a political party, be it a Kurdish or non-Kurdish party. We condemn
such acts in the strongest terms, and have said that the government,
security forces and the Supreme Judiciary Council [of Iraq] should
establish a committee to follow up on and find the perpetrators.
The security forces indeed didn't respond to the act, and didn't carry
out their responsibility to protect the area. They should be questioned.
Will the problem be solved with the arrest of a commander, or should groups behind the act be controlled?
This subject has two aspects; political and legal. The legal aspect is
that those behind the attack, those who supported them, and even the
security forces should be investigated and brought to justice. A number
of people have already been arrested, and the commander of the security
force on the scene has been fired and will likely be tried. The
government must carry out these tasks in the best possible way.
The second aspect is political; Kurdistan and Iraq's political parties
should review their relations and together throw their support behind
the government, so that it can impose its authority on these armed
groups in the best possible way, because the current government has no
power over the armed groups.
In other news, UK's MORNING STAR reports:
TURKEY has been accused of intimidating and interrogating Kurdish villagers in the border area of Iraq, blocking farmers from their land and handing them over to mercenaries.
Agricultural workers have spoken of their arrest by Turkish soldiers operating in the Batifa district of Duhok, in the mountainous region that separates the two nations.
Karwan Faidhi Dri (RUDAW) explains:
The Turkish army has in the last month begun interrogating villagers in the Batifa subdistrict of Duhok province and barring them from tending to their land, residents of the area have told Rudaw.
Idris Younes was on his way to irrigate his farmland in the village of Ris ten days ago when he was arrested by Turkish officers.
“The Turkish government captured me while I was in my car. They took me to our village [Ris]. Then, a Turkish commander handed me over to the commander of mercenaries, who held me for some three hours and released me upon receiving an order from the Turkish commander,” Younes told Rudaw earlier this week.
By mercenaries, Younes was referring to guards, mostly from Kurdish villages in southeast Turkey, who work in Batifa on the orders and payroll of the Turkish interior ministry.
For those who missed it, Turkey has invaded Iraq. No longer content to just continue dropping bombs on northern Iraq from war planes, Turkey has sent in ground forces. They are terrorizing the people of Iraq. If only the country had a prime minister who had the guts to stand up to Turkey. Instead ,the Iraqi people suffer and their national sovereignty is shredded.
Back to social media, a big story in Iraq this weekend has been a woman apparently throwing her two children to their deaths off the Imamas Bridge into the Tigris River. Surveillance cameras caught the alleged act and video of it has been all over Arabic social media.
