THI QAR / Aswat al-Iraq: 10 followers of religious leader Mahmoud al-Sarkhy in Nassiriya city were arrested when trying to storm in city's former municipality building, security sources said today. The followers stated that they intended to perform their prayers there, but police forces prevented them and subsequently attacked them.The source told Aswat al-Iraq that Sarkhy's followers converted the building to a mosque without official approval.
"Security forces prevented us from entering the building to perform our prayers there," Abdul Khaliq al-Hasani, the head of Sarkhy's office in Thi Qar, told Aswat al-Iraq. He added that the local government should declare the building either a mosque or a governmental building to end this case.
This building is the oldest one in Thi Qar province, which suffered methodological attempts to demolish it until Sarkhy's followers converted it to a mosque for prayers.
The case was brought to court, where a ruling was issued that the building should be a governmental building. The local government, however, did not implement the sentence and permitted Sarkhy's followers to continue their prayers in the street in front of it.