Thousands, mostly Sadr backers, join ‘silent protest’ in Baghdad

BAGHDAD: Thousands of Iraqis, mostly supporters of cleric Moqtada Sadr, held a silent protest in central Baghdad on Friday, a week after a rally demanding electoral reform turned violent.
They gathered on Tahrir Square where on Feb. 11 the security forces used rubber-coated bullets and tear gas to repulse protesters trying to march on the fortified Green Zone that houses the country’s key institutions.
There was no violence on Friday and organizers asked the protesters to refrain from chanting slogans.
The demonstrators, waving Iraqi flags, remained completely silent for more than an hour, and many of them had taped their mouths.
With provincial polls set for September, the protesters want an overhaul of the electoral law and the electoral commission to be replaced, on the grounds that both currently favor dominant parties they accuse of corruption and nepotism.
Meanwhile, the death toll from a car bomb attack in a southern Baghdad neighborhood has reached 59 with 66 others injured, a police officer and medical sources said Friday.
Authorities initially said the Thursday attack at an auto dealership in the Al-Bayaa neighborhood killed at least 55 and wounded more than 60. The Daesh group claimed credit for the bombing.
Daesh, in a statement early Friday, said its fighters detonated bombs in a parked car among a gathering of Shiites in the Fifth Police district on Thursday. It did not give further details.
The extremist group has carried out near-daily attacks in Baghdad despite suffering military setbacks elsewhere in the country, including in the northern city of Mosul, where US-backed Iraqi forces have been waging a major operation since October.
The US State Department condemned the bombing, saying such attacks show the extremist group’s “utter contempt for human life and its efforts to sow discord and division among the Iraqi people.”
Another four attacks in and around Baghdad on Thursday killed eight people and wounded around 30, police and medical officials said. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief reporters.