Why are Iraqi Kurds not taking part in protests?

Iraqi demonstrations have gripped much of the country, but the streets in the Kurdish region have been calm.

When in early October Joseph Salio received a phone call from a group of students in the Kurdistan region of Iraq (KRI) asking him to help organize a demonstration in solidarity with the protests in Baghdad and Basra, he did not hesitate to say yes. The 56-year-old member of the Communist Party of Kurdistan saw what was happening in the south as legitimate, rightful and timely.

But shortly after he set up an event on Facebook and invited friends and media outlets, he says he received a phone call from the Kurdish intelligence regarding the planned demonstration. The same day his co-organisers tried but failed to obtain official written permission from the authorities.

Perceiving that the Kurdish Regional Government (KRG) was not supportive of the event, Salio decided to cancel. When asked about this case, the KRG spokesman Jutyar Adil said he had no information about it.

Since last month, hundreds of thousands of Iraqis have taken to the streets in the capital Baghdad and across southern towns and cities to protest against the government’s failure to deliver basic services and economic opportunities. In recent weeks, the demonstrators’ demands have broadened to include the resignation of the government and an overhaul of the political system introduced after the US-led invasion of 2003. More than 300 people have been killed since the uprising began.

In the Kurdish northern region, however, the streets have remained calm. Salio believes that authorities there did not grant permission for a demonstration because they were afraid of what such a protest could turn into.

In Erbil, there appears to be some solidarity with the protesters in the south. Of about a dozen locals of different ages and economic backgrounds, all of them said that they believed they have good reason to be on the streets.

Some said that in the KRI, they face similar problems to those that have driven the protests in the south, including corruption and a lack of job prospects for young people. Youth unemployment is officially over 20 percent in the region and 25 percent nationwide.

However, people did not seem to be in the mood for protesting; some appeared jaded, while others said they were apprehensive of the possibility of political changes that could undermine Kurdish autonomy.

“Of course we have similar problems. And people have done protests [in the past] as well here, but nothing has come out of it,” says 19-year-old Hawjin, a history student at Salahaddin University in Erbil, who did not give her last name. “It has been useless. Sometimes protesters get attacked.”

Twenty-year-old Imad Shwan, also a student at Salahaddin University, agreed. “There are things to demand [from the regional government], to protest for, but people are afraid.”

In recent years, the KRI has also witnessed mass protests against the regional government, demanding immediate action on corruption, better economic opportunities, better governance, and basic services. In 2018, protests over the partial payment of wages erupted in Erbil and several other cities in the western part of the region.

The police cracked down on the protesters, injuring many and detaining over 80 people, including journalists. A few months earlier, in late 2017, people took to the streets in Sulaymaniyah, the second biggest city in the region, over similar grievances; there at least five people were killed and over 200 injured.

At that time, the KRG was struggling to pay public servants, after the central government in 2014 cut payments from the central budget to the region after a dispute over oil revenues and Erbil’s right to sell oil independently of the Iraqi state-owned energy company SOMO.

In response, the regional government cut the salaries of state employees, who make up some 50 percent of the working population of the region. This, along with growing public anger over the concentration of power and resources within the two most prominent Kurdish families – the Barzanis and the Talabani’s – and the two parties associated with them – the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), sparked mass protests between 2015 and 2018.

In late 2018, however, a new Iraqi central government was formed under Adil Abdul Mahdi, who showed a willingness to resolve the dispute with Erbil. In March, Baghdad finally sent part of the budget allocation for the KRI and public servants were able to receive their salaries in full for the first time since 2014.

Source: Agencies