2015–2018 Iraqi protests

On 16 July, clashes between police and demonstrators led to the death of one young man, with two others wounded.[22]

On 2 August, hundreds took to the streets in the southern cities of Nasriyah and Najaf to protest over poor living conditions, including power shortages, and urged authorities to fight widespread corruption.[23]

On 7 August, tens of thousands protested in the capital Baghdad and in Nasiriyah, Basra, Najaf and Karbala, against corruption and incompetence of government, ministers, "officials", "everyone who [is or] was responsible", causing very poor electricity facilities with Iraqis having electricity only a few hours per day, and other failing public services, denouncing the authorities as "corrupt" and "thiefs", some calling on Prime Minister Abadi to fire corrupt ministers. The higher Shiite leader at the time, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, also called for the Prime Minister to take a strong stance against corruption.[24][25][26][27] One segment of the protesters, those supporting Qais Khazali and his Shi’ite Asa'ib Ahl al-Haq militia, also called for the replacing of Iraq's parliamentary system by a presidential system.[25]

When Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi came to power in 2014, he promised to stamp out corruption. In 2015, he set out a reform plan to create a sense of political unity, to improve the failing economy, and to cut off the political and financial corruption. Iraq's system of sharing government positions among political parties, which often resulted in unqualified ministers and other officials, has often been criticized for encouraging such corruption.[28] Therefore, Abadi in February 2016 had proposed a fundamental change to the cabinet, replacing the party-affiliated ministers with non-partisan "professional and technocratic figures and academics".[13][28][29] Certain powerful parties in the Iraqi parliament however in April 2016 had for three weeks refused to approve that government reshuffle, and had blocked voting on it.[29]

Thereupon, Muqtada al-Sadr, Shia cleric and leader of the second largest party in parliament, on Tuesday 26 April 2016 called on his supporters to show up in Baghdad at the Green Zone, where the government and parliament are based, to "frighten" MPs from those certain parties—which rely on control of ministries for patronage and funds—and "compel" them to accept the prime minister's reforms.[29]

Hundreds of thousands of Sadr-followers that 26th of April gathered in Tahrir Square in Baghdad and later marched towards the heavily-fortified Green Zone, chanting that politicians "are all thieves".[13][29] The protests were also spurred by the government’s failure to provide basic commodities like water and electricity.[30] "The political quotas and the parties that control everything are the reason for the failure of the government," several protesters explained.[13] But that Tuesday, only a handful of ministers were approved by the parliament,[21] the voting couldn’t be completed due to disruptive behaviour of a dozen Members of Parliament, throwing water bottles towards the Prime Minister.[13][21][29]

On Saturday 30 April, again the parliament didn’t vote on the full proposal, because too few members (no quorum) had showed up.[28] Thereupon, Muqtada al-Sadr in a televised news conference again condemnded the political deadlock, criticised the "corrupt [officials] and quotas" – later on backed by the Iraqi President Fuad Masum saying that "burying the regime of party and sectarian quotas cannot be delayed" – and stated that he was "waiting for the great popular uprising and the major revolution to stop the march of the corrupt".[21][28] Thousands of Sadr's followers felt incited by that speech of Al-Sadr to come to the Green Zone of Baghdad again,[31] and hundreds of them this time broke through the barricades of the Green Zone and stormed the parliament, occupied the chamber.[28] The security forces present did not clash with protesters,[21] nor attempted to stop them from entering the parliament;[31] members of a Sadrist armed group themselves checked the entering protesters cursorily on the carriage of explosives et cetera while the remaining (thousands of) Sadr's protesters at the gates chanted: "Peaceful!"[21] Some protesters nevertheless began ransacking or rampaging parts of the parliament building.[20][21] Security forces declared a state of emergency.[32][28]

Then, on a call from Muqtada al-Sadr to evacuate the parliament and set up tents outside,[21] the protesters set up a camp on the lawn outside the parliament[28] and, by pulling barbed wire across an exit road, effectively stopped some scared MP's from fleeing the parliament building and the chaos.[20][28]

U.S. observers analyzed that the U.S. administration had focused too much on the battle against ISIL, thereby neglecting the much tougher task of repairing Iraq's corrupt and largely ineffective government – the goal which prime minister Abadi was pursuing by replacing politically connected ministers with 'technocrats' but was now (April 2016) being obstructed by ‘powerful blocs’ in the Iraqi parliament. Several U.S. former military advisors suggested that “the Iraqi government, as it is currently structured, can't hold” or “Iraq is becoming increasingly ungovernable”. Mr. Ali Khedery, a former assistant to five U.S. ambassadors in Baghdad, added that “[Iraqi] society is deeply polarized between communities [Sunni, Shiite, Kurdish] and even polarized within those communities”, and that perhaps therefore the U.S. administration should work directly with individual Sunni, Shiite and Kurdish leaders, accepting that “there isn't much under Abadi's control” in Iraq.[30]

On Saturday 11 February 2017, thousands of Muqtada al-Sadr followers held a protesting rally in the capital Baghdad, demanding an overhaul and replacement of the High Electoral Commission (election committee) which they, on the orders of al-Sadr, accused of corruption. Sadr himself claimed, that the commission members were loyal to his Shia rival and former prime minister Nouri al-Maliki. Security forces fired tear gas and rubber-coated bullets at the protesters; five protesters and two policemen were killed, 320 protesters and seven police officers wounded.[33][34]

The Iraqi security forces sealed off routes leading to the capital’s fortified Green Zone.[33] Later on that day, six or seven Katyusha-type rockets purportedly were fired at the Green Zone from within Baghdad, but with no casualties reported.[34]

On Friday, 24 March 2017, again thousands of Muqtada al-Sadr followers protested in downtown Baghdad for the same purposes as in February: the accusation that the Iraqi election committee would be "corrupt" and that therefore, unless that committee would be overhauled, al-Sadr and his (Shiite) followers would boycott the upcoming Iraqi provincial elections. Al-Sadr instead incited his followers to join a "reform revolution".[35]

Map of Iraq (in 2003) indicating the Iraqi ‘Shiite heartland’ in southern and central Iraq where most of the protests in 2018 took place.

Protest demonstrations, mostly around Basra but often through all southern and central Iraq (where Shia Islam is prevailing or strongly present) and in capital Baghdad,[36][37] took place in 2018 since June[38] or since 9 July,[36] until at least early December.[38] In July 2018, a journalist counted 46 protests in Basra province within two weeks; in early September he counted 75 protests in Basra province in one week.[8] This protest movement was hardly organised[39] or not organised, and not united behind one clear goal or agenda; it consisted of at best loosely connected groups, often with (partly) different grievances or motivations.[8]

1. The main, and often shared, protesting cause was the failing of basic, public services like electricity supplies and clean drinking water,[8][36][38][39] which many protesters considered to be a symptom of:
2. The incompetence and corruption of the federal as well as the local authorities.[8][36][40]
3. A third, and connected, cause of protests was the very high unemployment in Iraq, especially under youths, who felt marginalized and cut out of opportunities by that same corrupt and clientelist political class and political economy.[8][36][39][41]
4. Another (connected) cause of anger were the presumed, direct and indirect, negative influences of Iran on economy, living conditions, and political inertia and deadlocks and corruption in Iraq.[8][42][43][44][45][46]
5. Furthermore, there was (connected) anger over the inability and/or unwillingness of the quarreling political parties in the newly elected parliament since the May 2018 general elections, especially the parties chosen by Iraq’s Shiite majority, to form a government and start heeding the many needs of the Iraqi population (even by late December 2018 the installation of a full cabinet was not completed);[38][8][47][40] Shiite parties that often were presumed to be under Iranian influence and were presumed to be protecting their rifling personnel.[44] Iraqi citizens often didn’t feel themselves heard nor represented by the Iraqi politicians;[8] the only Member of Parliament known to have expressed solidarity with the protesters in 2018 was Muqtada al-Sadr.[42]
6. Another stone of offence were the large, foreign, oil companies in southern Iraq, reaping enormous profits from Iraq's natural riches, profits that stayed out of reach and out of sight of the average Iraqi citizens,[39] who were hardly even hired for work on the oil installations where the companies employed mostly foreign nationals rather than the local Iraqis around Basra,[36] jobless and (as stated above) often deprived of basic supplies.[39]

Security forces shot dead their first protester this year in Basra on 8 July, which seems to have fueled the protesting mood and movement.[47][44] By 20 July, already ten protesters had been killed, either by security forces or by (rivalling) civilian groups or individuals.[40][37] By 8 September 2018, 20 protesters this year had died while protesting.[42] Especially leading protest figures were assassinated, by security forces or unknown attackers: in September 2018 tribesman Makki Yassir al-Kaabi,[8] in November sheikh Wessam al-Gharrawi,[43] both near Basra. Apart from such armed violence, the authorities also tried to suppress the protests by blocking the Internet in southern Iraq.[41]