A group of protesters camp in front of the headquarters of Iraq’s Supreme Judicial Council

Aug. 23 (EUROPA PRESS) –

A group of protesters have begun to camp in front of the headquarters of the Supreme Judicial Council in the Green Zone of the Iraqi capital, Baghdad, where most of the embassies and headquarters of the Iraqi government are located.

After registering the sit-ins of the ‘Sadrist’ protesters, who ask for the dissolution of the Iraqi Parliament, the council, as well as the affiliated courts and the federal court, have decided to “suspend their functions”, according to the Iraqi news agency INA.

In a statement, the Supreme Judicial Council assures that the protests are “unconstitutional and illegal behavior”, for which it has decided to suspend its activity during the day, according to the news portal Shafaq News.

The pro-Iranian groups, brought together in the so-called Coordination Framework, have been concentrating in recent weeks in the central and southern regions of Iraq, particularly in the Green Zone of the capital.

Protesters carry banners calling for the Iraqi parliament to be dissolved, as demanded by powerful cleric and election winner Muqtada al-Sadr, who has called on his hundreds of thousands of supporters to behave peacefully during the protests.

Al Sadr has denounced that all his attempts to form a government have failed due to the insistence of his rivals in convening a consensus government instead of respecting the distribution of seats after the elections, which ended with the defeat of the key Iranian-backed parties. in the political balance of the country.

The last parliamentarians, of an anticipated nature, were called after the serious political crisis in which the country was plunged after the massive mobilizations registered in 2019, which forced the resignation of the Government and the approval of new electoral legislation.

The protests, which broke out in October 2019 and resulted in more than 550 deaths –according to the official balance provided in July 2020–, were a new example of the population’s disenchantment with the political class in the face of numerous cases of corruption. , the poor state of public services and the prevailing economic crisis in Iraq.