SULAIMANIYAH, Iraq — Security forces in
Iraq’s autonomous Kurdistan region fired tear gas and rubber-coated bullets
Saturday to disperse anti-government protesters and briefly detained seven
opposition lawmakers, an AFP journalist and an official said.
اضافة اعلان
The opposition New Generation party had called for
demonstrations in
Sulaimaniyah and other cities in the country’s north in
protest of deteriorating living conditions, alleged corruption, and
authoritarian practices by the regional government.
Dozens of police vehicles were deployed to the
center of Sulaimaniyah, and security forces fired tear gas and rubber-coated
bullets once several hundred protesters had gathered, an AFP correspondent
reported.
Security forces stopped journalists from taking
images of the crackdown.
Six New Generation lawmakers in the federal
parliament in Baghdad who were preparing to join the protests, and another from
the regional parliament, were taken in for questioning for a few hours, the
bloc’s chief Srwa Abdulwahid told AFP. They were all later released, she said.
Abdulwahid posted photographs on Twitter of some 30
activists she said had been arrested in recent days.
Human rights associations regularly criticize
Iraqi Kurdish authorities for carrying out arbitrary arrests, suppressing protests
and attacking press freedoms.
Keen on projecting an image as a relative haven of
stability and tolerance in war-battered Iraq, the autonomous region has long
been dominated by the Kurdistan Democratic Party, led by the Barzani family,
and the rival Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, headed by the Talabani clan.
The crackdown in the Kurdistan region comes as supporters
of powerful Shiite Muslim leader
Moqtada Al-Sadr have been holding a sit-in in
the gardens around parliament in Baghdad’s normally secure Green Zone, home to
government and diplomatic buildings.
Sadr’s supporters occupied the legislature last Saturday
and remained inside the building for several days, protesting against a rival
Shiite bloc’s pick for the premiership.
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