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| Iraq | ||
| Two protesters shot dead in Iraqi Kurdish town | ||
| 2015-10-11 | ||
| [Al Ahram] Guards rubbed out two demonstrators in the Iraqi Kurdish town of Kalar Saturday as protesters tried to storm the local headquarters of the regional president's party, a hospital front man said. "Two protesters have died of bullet wounds. One was 19 and the other 40," the official told AFP. Witnesses and a security official said the protesters eventually set fire to the local office of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) in Kalar, a town in the southernmost part of Iraq's Kurdish region. Thousands of people demonstrated in the main southern Kurdish city of Sulaimaniyah, in Kalar and in several other towns Saturday, demanding that acting regional president Massud Barzani step down. Two protesters were rubbed out in similar circumstances on Friday in Qala Diza, further north. The demonstrations were initially protests against the non-payment of salaries to civil servants by the Kurdish Regional Government, which faces a dire budget crisis. The latest protests evolved into a mobilisation against Barzani in areas of Iraqi Kurdistan where opposition to the KDP is traditionally strong.
The 13-year-old boy died in the hospital from injuries sustained when the building was set on fire, Qaladze hospital personnel Othman Muhamad told Rudaw. Three people were rubbed out yesterday during demonstrations in Qaladze, while dozens more were maimed. The semiautonomous Kurdish enclave in northern Iraq has been erupting in protests for the past week as anger over lack of government wages, feuding political parties and economic instability has reached a boiling point. Clashes between demonstrators and police continue in the town of Said Sadiq and Kalar in the Sulaimani. Protesters torched the KDP's building in Kalar on Saturday. Police used tear gas during a mass demonstration in Sarra Square in the city on Saturday when hundreds of protesters gathered again to demand three months of unpaid salaries and an end to the current political stalemate that has left the KRG without an official president since August. Major political parties in Kurdistan have condemned the violence and called on citizens and party members for peace.
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| Posted by:Fred |