ANSD : Iraqi preacher linked to Basra protests killed outside home

TUE 26 - 11 - 2024

Date: Nov 19, 2018
Source: The Daily Star

Iraqi preacher linked to Basra protests killed outside home

_{Associated Press}
BASRA, Iraq: Hundreds of Basra residents mourned a Muslim preacher Sunday who police said was killed outside his home after he suggested that protesters should take up arms over poor public services in the city. Wissam al-Ghrawi was a prominent figure in demonstrations demanding clean water and reliable electricity in the southern Iraqi city. Basra province generates more than 90 percent of Iraq’s oil exports but suffers from contaminated drinking water and regular blackouts.

Basra police say Ghrawi was shot and killed in front of his house in the city center by unknown assailants late Saturday. He was filmed at a protest Friday saying preachers would issue a fatwa within days on taking up arms. The video was shared widely on Iraqi social media.

Associates and relatives of Ghrawi paraded his coffin around parts of the city Sunday, demanding the police identify the killers and bring them to justice.

“Why was Sheikh Wissam al-Ghrawi killed? Because he asked for clean water? Because he asked for jobs for the unemployed? Is this the price he paid for defending his country?” said civic activist Mohanad al-Ghrawi, a distant relative of the deceased cleric.

Ghrawi is at least the second activist to be killed in what appeared to be a targeted assassination since protests swept Basra last summer. One of the organizers, Soad al-Ali, was killed by a gunman in September, after protesters began directing their ire toward Iran, which they saw as exerting undue influence over national politics.

Demonstrators set fire to the Iranian consulate and attacked the headquarters of the various Iran-backed militias and parties that operate with impunity in the city.

Most of the city’s official government buildings were torched, as well.

Police said Ali’s killing was over a personal matter.

Suspicions again turned toward the militias, collectively known as Al-Hashd al-Shaabi, Sunday.

“We say here, once again, to the Basra security and police have you done your job to stop these militias that kill the youth and intellectuals?” Mohanad al-Ghrawi said.

“Anyone who speaks up is threatened with exile, arrest, or killing,” said activist Naqeeb al-Louaibi, who moved to Baghdad from Basra in October after receiving threats to his life.

Al-Hashd al-Shaabi were integral to Iraq’s war against Daesh (ISIS) and paid salaries to hundreds of thousands of fighters, many of whom were drawn from Iraq’s impoverished southern provinces.

But with the war declared won late last year, attention has turned to Iraq’s high unemployment and decaying infrastructure.

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