Iraq death toll hits 34

Protesters clashed with anti-riot police in Iraq yesterday despite the premier’s pleas for patience and an internet blackout on the fourth day of mass rallies that have left 34 dead.

Many were awaiting a signal in the midday sermon of Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, Iraq’s highest Shia Muslim authority, that would influence the revolt in the predominantly-Shia areas.

Sistani in his Friday prayer sermon called on the government to heed the demands of protesters and condemned the mounting death toll from clashes with police.

The endorsement from Sistani, who is revered among Iraq’s Shia majority community, prompted celebratory gunfire from protesters and piled new pressure on Prime Minister Adel Abdel Mahdi as he battles to quell the intensifying unrest.

The prime minister has appealed for patience from the young unemployed who have formed the mainstay of the protests, saying his not yet year-old government needs more time to implement reforms.

But Sistani retorted that the government needed to act now “before it’s too late” to address popular grievances or the protests would simply intensify.

The crisis required “clear and practical steps” or the protesters will “simply come back even stronger”, he said.

The government “must do what it can to improve public services, find work for the unemployed, end clientelism, deal with the corruption issue and send those implicated in it to prison”, Sistani added, listing some of the protesters’ main grievances.

Protests first broke out in Baghdad on Tuesday and have since spread across the Shia-dominated south, while northern and western provinces that were ravaged in the 2014-2017 war against the Islamist State group have remained relatively quiet.