There has been sporadic local protests in Southern provinces for the last three years, continuation of the first round of mass protests in 2011 which was violently suppressed. The local protests involves demonstrations in front of local government offices, blocking public roads, vigils at entrances to oil company and port facilities in Fao, Um Qasr and Ma’aqal. There is a long list of grievances, general and local people complain about, mixed with political tribal rivalries, with trade unions curiously not prominent.
Friday 17 July in Madeyna in Basra a demonstration against the electricity cuts in searing heat turned violent. There was shooting and a young demonstrator Muntadhar Al-Halfi was killed. This sparked more demonstrations in Basra, largest of which was on 31 July with slogans directed at corrupt officials. There are local rivalries between religious parties that play a role, but the demos was nonpartisan, non-sectarian, and in fact vilifies by the main political groups. This spread to other provinces through various media coordination methods. Basra is the third largest province in Iraq, and produces 90% of the income of the Baghdad government, yet it has neither regular electricity, nor clean drinking water. Its local government is dominated by religious parties and rife with corruption.
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