Four Demonstrations Activists Arrested Today

BAGHDAD / IraqiNews.com: Four young activists were arrested today in Tahreer Square, when they were demonstrating with other 250 protesters, in a new demonstration called “Friday of Decision”, as reported by an activist group.  Strict security precautions were made in the road leading to the square and the well fortified Green Zone.  A source in (Iraqi Streets for Change) group informed IraqiNews.com that “four young activists in organizing weekly demonstrations in Baghdad, since last February, were arrested.  They were Mu’ayad Al-Tayib, Ali Al-Jaff, Ahmed Al-Baghdadi and Jihad Jaleel.  They were within a 250 demonstrators criticizing the government for not providing suitable service and the deterioration in living standards, despite the near-end 100-day period given by Premier Nouri Al-Maliki to achieve better services.  The group said that” the four activists by army Division 11 soldiers who handed them to another armed group that put them in an ambulance and took them to unknown destination”.  Demonstrator Abdulla Ibraheem said that the calling of today’s demonstration as ( Friday of Decision) is the warning that ” the people will not give the government its legitimacy because it failed to implement its promises”.  Other demonstrators were voicing calls for the withdrawal of US forces from Iraq.  RM (TS)/SR 782