Assassination For Militia Protest In Iraq On The Rise
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Alaina
- . May 13, 2021
- . Update: May 14, 2021 4:25 pm
It is punishment for mutiny and it is all out in the open. In Iraq, those with impunity have been openly assassinated by the powerful militia. Killings are done in public and there is no one who can stop it from happening.
Surveillance footage catches the inhuman act where millions are watching the crime in horror. But even if the gunmen are identified, no one is prosecuted, and the cycle starts again.
It is open assassination for raising a voice against injustice of governance. This is not just the case with activists but also with journalists who are trying to report about the ill justice happening in Iraq.
The trend is more common across Baghdad and southern Iraq. At hand is a burning protest demanding the ouster of Iraq’s U.S.-molded political system and the usually Iran-linked armed groups that prop it up.
Mass street demonstrations were crushed by force threaten of closing down of internet access, paramilitary brutality, throwing human rights out of the windows. In the absence of fair representation in the parliament, capable individuals have been pushing to stand for elections. But this effort has been systematically crushed. Some activists and prominent figures in the protest movement are being picked off while they walk the streets or drive home at the end of the day. They are killed or their whereabouts are unknown.
The scene is similar to that of Iran, where no one is allowed to raise a voice against the administration in power.
The assassinations, underscore the reach of Iraq’s militia network — to punish citizens who dare to criticize it and control a political system meant to hold it accountable.
Every time there has been unrest and demand for the militia to be oust, cases of kidnaps and killings of activists and journalists has only increased.
Iraq’s militia network, known as the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), has a presence throughout the state. Representatives of the PMF — which encompasses groups linked to Iran as well as loyalists of powerful Shiite Muslim cleric Moqtada al-Sadr — are members of Iraq’s official security forces. They are lawmakers, cabinet members, senior civil servants and powerful business executives. It has become next to impossible to raise a voice for hope of a truly democratic government in Iraq.
