Report Mar #2 23 En

Reports

تقرير منظمة كردستان لمراقبة حقوق الانسان حول وضع اللتظاهرات في العراق

Governmental measures bring the issue of trust between the citizen and the government back to square one again.

The disputed areas were a point of contention between successive governments and political parties of Arabs, Kurds, and Turkmen, which revolved around the right to own land in Kirkuk Governorate in particular. Therefore, any government action in those areas for the distribution and appropriation of lands constitutes a controversy and raises fears among the different nationalities, especially the Kurdish and Turkmen. As any government action in those areas is interpreted as a step in the displacement of one nationality at the expense of another nationality, and this is what arouses the ire of citizens in the region and makes them take a position against any action taken by the government. Therefore, it has become necessary for the Iraqi government to deal with wisdom and patience in those areas to contain the anger and resentment of the citizens in those areas. In this report, the demonstrations that were monitored by the monitoring team during the second half of March 2023 in several Iraqi governorates will be reviewed.

Kirkuk governorate demonstrations 03-23-2023

As one of the Iraqi provinces suffering internal conflicts and turmoil, Kirkuk is considered a time bomb floating on a sea of oil, since the political and governmental decisions issued in this province cannot resolve its fundamental problems and deferred conflicts. This province represents a miniature Iraq with its components and differences. What increased its importance is its concern about natural resources and oil. This created an inevitable conflict between all political parties and successive governments over this province's fate.

In government institutions, permanent staffing has become one of the basic demands of contractors, as it provides Iraqis with livelihood security.

Hundreds of citizens of the Kurdish and Turkmen nationalities organized demonstrations against the decision of the Directorate of Municipalities of Kirkuk Governorate. This included thousands of hectares of land belonging to the Kurds and Turkmen into public residential areas for all nationalities. Since these lands are mainly owned by Kurdish and Turkmen citizens, this decision aroused the ire of Kurdish and Turkmen citizens, who organized large demonstrations against it.

During the demonstration, one of the demonstrators stated that previous governments were systematically concealing the Kurdish and Turkmen identity of the province, which is one of the richest oil-producing provinces in the country, and that what is occurring now is nothing more than a continuation of the previous government's actions. This province has unique characteristics in terms of demographic composition. The government must be professional in dealing with the issues of this province, not weakening one component at the expense of another.

It is worth noting that thousands of Kurdish and Turkmen citizens went out in demonstrations calling on the Iraqi government to work to return the lands to the citizens that were confiscated from them by the previous regime, which amounted to more than 32,000 hectares of farmland. These lands are controlled by the Iraqi Ministry of Defense and the Directorate of Municipalities of Kirkuk, and we are building residential complexes on them. In a bid to put pressure on the Iraqi government to respond to the demands of demonstrators in the region, citizens blocked the main road between Kirkuk and Baghdad.

And one of the demonstrators - that despite the fall of the previous regime, the decisions that were issued in that era are still effective so Kurdish and Turkmen nationalism is excluded from their areas, which are among the disputed areas that are supposed to be dealt with in accordance with Article 140 of the constitution Al-Iraqi, which was approved in 2005 and stipulates that the future of the disputed areas will be determined in 3 stages, starting with normalization by returning the non-native population to their areas after compensating them financially, then conducting a census of its population, to be followed by a popular referendum on its ownership of the government of Baghdad or Erbil, and this is done through The Supreme Committee for the Implementation of the Article, however, successive Iraqi governments have neglected this constitutional article.

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One of the demonstrators was shown speaking in front of the cameras of satellite channels

Governmentally, there was no response from the government to the demonstrators' demands. As for security, there was a presence of security forces, but did not interfere in the demonstration, and their work was limited to organizing the demonstration and preserving its integrity. According to the monitoring team, there were no clashes or acts of violence between the demonstrators and the security forces. In the media, there was an intense presence by media channels, including Speda, Rudaw, K24 and Payam, and many others channels, in addition to its circulation through social media channels.

Diwaniyah Governorate demonstrations 03-25-2023

The pace of protests escalated in Diwani streStreeter the vote in the cabinet session on Monday 3/20/2023 to include the third Rusafa education supplement for lecturers and administrators by converting them from free lecturers and administrators into contracts and releasing their financial allocation in the 2023 budget, which led to the exit of

The issue of appointment to permanent staffing in governmental institutions has become one of the issues that raises the condemnation of the Iraqis, as it lasted for a longer period than usual.

hundreds of lecturersand administrators attached to Diwaniyah Education, with mass escalatorydemonstrations, for Monday, 3/20/2023 in the evening. It is noteworthy that thedemonstration movement began with an invitation by the representative of theDiwaniyah Education Attaché (Suleiman Kazem Al-Mayali) (where Al-Mayali sent amessage to all members of the Diwaniyah Education Attachment to gather in frontof the sit-in tent and go out in demonstrations at exactly seven o’clock in theevening on Monday 3/20/2023 as well). He invited all activists andParliamentarians to support the Diwaniyah Education Attaché.

As a result of this call, protesters flocked to the gathering place in front of the Diwaniyah Education Directorate building. At exactly 7:30 the protesters began roaming the streets of Diwaniyah, carrying tires with them. In loud voices, the demonstrators chanted (Muhammad Suwani is invalid, not the children of Talibah, the House of Representatives is invalid, this marginalization, this exclusion is invalid. In addition, protesters blocked some main streets in Diwaniyah. They expressed their anger as a result of not mentioning them in the cabinet session and releasing their financial allocation. This protest movement continued until the late hours of the night and ended with the announcement of a date for a mass demonstration the next day.

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Demonstrators of contract workers were seen demanding the appointment of permanent staff in the government

On the morning of Tuesday 3/21/2023, at exactly eight o’clock in the morning, hundreds of individuals gathered (the lecturers and administrators attached to the Directorate of Education in Diwaniyah) and a large group of activists and educators declared their solidarity with this group to demand their legitimate rights, just like the rest of the other annexes. In Diwaniyah, a large march began with the security forces roaming thestreets of Diwaniyah with slogans and chants demanding their rights, which are:

1- Announcing a link to their data by the DiwaniyahEducation Directorate

Including them in the confirmation process withtheir peers as well as administrators and attendees

The protesters roamed the streets of Diwaniyah, burning tires and blocking vital roads. On the other hand, one of the demonstration coordinators (Tariq Al-Barqa'awi) sent an invitation to the parliamentarians, the governor of Diwaniyah, and some activists and the Diwaniyah community to support their fellow members (appendix). The sit-down tent from the Diwaniyah Education Extension, who are demanding to be installed by permanent owners, where he promised them that he would follow up the installation procedures and guarantee their rights to permanent owners if the governor writes a request to the Ministry of Finance to proceed with the installation procedures as quickly as possible, and he also contacted the office of the Prime Minister to follow up on the demands. In addition to the governorate's response to the demonstrators' request, the remote person - Nour Nafeh Al-Jelhawi - met with the minister of Education - Ibrahim Namis Al-Jubouri - to resolve the file of confirming the workers in Aqum, whose names are included in the appendix of an official letter from the Diwaniyah Governorate, to confirm them to the permanently employed staff. Handing over a letter by the two deputies - Nazem Fahem Al-Shibli - and Nour Nafeh Al-Jelhawi - personally to the Prime Minister, in which they demanded Mr. - Al-Sudani - include a paragraph

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A copy of the official request submitted by the parliamentarians to the Presidency of the Council of Ministers to appoint contract workers on permanent staffing

for the payment of financialdues for contracts in Al-Diwaniyah Governorate and to include them in thepermanent owners.

As for security, thedemonstration was committed to its peacefulness. The security forces dealtprofessionally with the demonstration, as their work was limited to ensuringits peacefulness and its organization. Several media outlets covered the demonstration,including the Al-Sharqiya satellite channel, the Al-Rabaa satellite channel, aswell as social networking sites, particularly Facebook.

The reasons for thedemonstrations / the demands of the demonstrators

By reviewing the demonstrationsand events in several Iraqi governorates, it becomes clear that the mostprominent reasons that led to their launchare as follows:

• Appointment of permanent staffin the government sector.

• Objecting to governmentdecisions to seize citizens' lands.

Notes on security authorities'handling of gatherings:

By monitoring the behavior ofthe security forces during the demonstrations, we see that the security forcesare still committed to professionalism in dealing with the demonstrators andthus contribute to the peacefulness of the demonstrations, in addition toworking to export positive images about the nature of the work of the securityforces, which is to protect citizens and maintain security. The avoidance ofviolence and professional dealings by the security forces can be considered apositive indicator of freedom of expression in Iraq.

Kurdistan Organization for Human Right Watch

www.KOHRW.org

Email: Reports@kohrw.org

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