Faizel Patel, Radio Islam News – 08-11-2019
An award-winning academic and writer has told Radio Islam Iraqi demonstrators are being killed in the streets for demanding an end to a corrupt status quo installed by the US and propped up by Iran.
Since the beginning of October, there have been ongoing protests in the Shia dominated governance of Iraq.
The latest violence after a month of protests has caused the death toll to soar to more than 250 people.
Tallha Abdulrazaq says the land of Iraq has a history of Sunni and Shia living together for centuries.
He says the current protests have reached out across the ethno-sectarian divide, putting to shame almost two decades worth of politicised pseudo-analysis that sought to divide Iraqis.
“This narrative is kind of whipped up you could say by in my view the fundamentalist Iranian interpretation which basically seeks to dehumanize Sunni Muslims as being for example traitors to the bloodline of the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) and calling the Sahaba, the companions the Prophet (PBUH) as traitors.”
He says this kind of inflammatory language led to a lot of deaths and killings and encouraged the growth of groups like Al-Qaeda and Isis.
Abdulrazaq says there is minimal response from the international community including Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International after it emerged that live rounds were being used on protestors.
“The reason why that is and why it’s been quite a muted response when it comes to the Iraqi government’s use of extraordinary levels of brutality is because the entire Iraqi democracy is an experimental democracy and it’s a Frankenstein monster of a democracy, it’s not a natural democracy. That was instituted obviously by the United States.”
Abdulrazaq says while there is no overall political message to the protests its aim is to get rid of Iranian influence, corruption and holding people to account.
Listen to the interview with Tallha Abdulrazaq
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