Hundreds of people demonstrated in Nasiriyah, southern Iraq, to demand the release of detained activists, with clashes injuring protesters and security personnel. The gathering focused on people arrested for participating in the mass demonstrations of October 2019 and in more recent protests.
Participants described the legal cases against the activists as retaliatory and called for the local police chief to resign. Several Iraqi legislators who supported the protest movement attended, giving the demonstration visible political backing in a city that has repeatedly served as a center of anti-government dissent.
Security forces attempted to disperse the crowd with smoke bombs. Authorities blocked roads leading to Al-Haboubi Square with barbed wire, restricting access to a symbolic public gathering point. The confrontation produced differing accounts of the number of people hurt.
A Dhi Qar police official, speaking anonymously because he was not authorized to comment, said 11 members of the security forces and nine protesters were injured. A separate police-command statement reported injuries to 21 of its personnel and did not mention injured demonstrators. The discrepancy could not be resolved from the evidence packet, so both versions remained attributed rather than combined into a single total.
Neither account specified the severity of the injuries. The use of smoke bombs was reported, while the provincial council’s later emphasis on avoiding live ammunition reflected concern over escalation; the packet did not state that live rounds were fired during Friday’s clashes.
The Dhi Qar provincial council held an emergency session on Friday evening after the violence. Council member Ahmed Al-Khafaji said it adopted several decisions in response. He said the body supported stopping raids and searches at activists’ homes, allowing activists to resolve legal matters through police stations in their own areas and emphasizing that live ammunition should not be used against demonstrators.
Those measures addressed some of the protesters’ complaints about enforcement tactics and pursuit of activists. The report did not establish whether detainees were released, whether the police chief resigned or how quickly the council’s decisions would be implemented. The immediate political response therefore remained a set of commitments rather than a documented resolution.
The protest took place five years after Iraq’s largest wave of anti-government demonstrations since 2003. From October through December 2019, protesters in Baghdad and southern provinces demanded political reforms. The movement contributed to the government’s fall and parliament’s adoption of a new electoral law.
That earlier crackdown was deadly. Hundreds of protesters were killed, thousands were injured and many were arrested as security forces used live ammunition and snipers, according to the supplied account. The history gave renewed demonstrations in Nasiriyah particular weight and shaped activists’ contention that later legal cases were punishment for political participation.
Friday’s clashes showed that disputes originating in the 2019 movement remained unresolved. Protesters returned to the streets over arrests and policing, security forces again used crowd-control measures, and the provincial council intervened after injuries were reported. The event ended without evidence of a final settlement, leaving demands for releases, accountability and limits on police action still before local authorities.
