Iraq protests: Powerful cleric Moqtada al-Sadr demands government resign as toll rises close to 100
One of Iraq's most influential clerics called on Friday for the government to resign as the death toll rose to 93 in the violent national protests against official corruption that have now entered their fifth day.
Moqtada al-Sadr, a populist political leader who has a huge following on the Iraqi street, said new elections should be held soon.
"Respect the blood of Iraq through the resignation of the government and prepare for early elections overseen by international monitors," a statement from his office said.
Nearly 4,000 people have been injured since the protests against chronic unemployment, poor public services and widespread corruption erupted in the capital on Tuesday, the Iraq parliament's human rights commission said.
It was not immediately clear whether the latest deaths were from Friday's huge protests or fresh demonstrations on Saturday.
The authorities have imposed a virtual blackout of the internet and confirmation of protest casualties in the provinces has trickled in slowly.
Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi called for calm as more than 190 people were wounded in the capital on Friday, but protesters scorned his promises of political reform.
Sadr's intervention appeared likely to encourage them to continue their uprising until the government backs down.
On the streets of Baghdad, police appeared to be targeting individual protesters. Reuters reporters saw one fall to the ground after being shot in the head. He was pronounced dead in hospital.
Elsewhere, a Reuters television crew saw a man critically wounded by a gunshot to the neck after snipers on rooftops opened fire at a crowd. Sporadic shooting could be heard in Baghdad into the late evening.
Police shot dead three people trying to storm the provincial government headquarters in the southern city of Diwaniya, police and medics said.
The violence is the worst since Iraq put down an insurgency by Islamic State two years ago. The protests arose in the south, heartland of the Shi'ite majority, but quickly spread, with no formal leadership.
"It is sorrowful that there have been so many deaths, casualties and destruction," Iraq's most influential cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, said in a letter read out by his representative during a sermon.
"The government and political sides have not answered the demands of the people to fight corruption or achieved anything on the ground," said Sistani, who stays out of day-to-day politics but whose word is law for Iraq's Shi'ites. "Parliament holds the biggest responsibility for what is happening."
Sadr, who leads the largest opposition bloc in parliament, ordered his lawmakers to suspend participation in the legislature until the government introduces a programme that would serve all Iraqis.
Parliament is to convene Saturday to discuss protesters' demands. A curfew was lifted at 5am local time (7am UK time) on Saturday morning, two days after imposing the measure in an attempt to quell the protests.
Security remains heavily deployed but streets and main squares are now open to traffic. Municipal workers were on Saturday morning clearing the streets of the bullets and debris left behind by the latest confrontations.
The speaker of Iraq's parliament has called the protests a "revolution" against corruption but urged calm and proposed reforms such as better state housing support for poor people and ensuring Iraqi graduates are included on lucrative foreign projects for energy sector development.
Many government officials and lawmakers are widely accused of siphoning off public money, unfairly awarding contracts in state institutions and other forms of corruption.
The violence is an unprecedented test for Adel Abdul Mahdi, a mild-mannered veteran politician who came to power last year as a compromise candidate backed by powerful Shi'ite groups that have dominated Iraq since the downfall of Saddam Hussein in 2003.
In his overnight address, Abdul Mahdi pledged reforms but said there was no "magic solution" to Iraq's problems. He insisted politicians were aware of the suffering of the masses: "We do not live in ivory towers - we walk among you in the streets of Baghdad," he said.
A young man in a crowd fleeing sniper shots at a central Baghdad square was scornful. "The promises by Adel Abdul Mahdi are to fool the people, and today they are firing live gunshots at us," he said.
"Today this was a peaceful protest. They set up these barricades, and the sniper is sitting right there since last night."
The unrest occurs on the eve of Arbaeen, a Shi'ite pilgrimage which in recent years has drawn 20 million worshippers, trekking for days on foot across southern Iraq in the world's biggest annual gathering, 10 times the size of the Mecca Hajj.
Some pilgrims were already taking to the roads on Friday, although in smaller numbers than in recent years. Iran has closed one of the border crossings used by millions of pilgrims. Qatar has told its citizens to stay away.
A senior Iranian cleric blamed the unrest on the United States and Israel, saying they aimed to thwart the pilgrimage.
The protests could grow if they receive formal backing from Sadr, who has long denounced corruption and the political elite. Parliament was set to hold a session dedicated to finding a solution, but Sadr's faction was staying away.
Sadr has not called on his followers to join the protests, but his faction has expressed sympathy with their aims. One senior Sadrist politician, Awad Awadi, described the protests to Reuters as "a revolution of hunger".
