Sulaimaniya’s clashes reach 14 injured, including policeman

SULAIMANIYA / IraqiNews.com: The number of wounded persons due to the clashes that took place in north Iraq’s Kurdish city of Sulaimaniya on Saturday has reached 13 people injured, including a policeman, according to a statistic by the city’s emergency hospital’s director on Sunday. “Sulaimaniya‘s emergency hospital has received 13 demonstrators and a policeman, injured in clashes in the city during the demonstrations that took place on Saturday,” Hawar Hassan Naqshabandy, told Iraqi News, giving no further details. A source close to the demonstrators told IraqiNews.com early on Saturday that “thousands of demonstrators went to the streets in Kani Iskan and Saray districts in the city, clashing with the Kurdish Asayish (security) forces, adding that “eight persons have been injured during the clashes that led to the detention of a number of demonstrators.” The above developments took place at a time when Sulaimaniya citizens have been worried against possibility of the renewal of clashes and violence acts between the demonstrators and security forces. Hundreds of demonstrators have gone to the streets of Sulaimaniya last Thursday, demanding the improvement of services and living conditions, fighting corruption and carrying out political reforms, that injured about 50 persons, including some who lost their lives, following clashes in front of the headquarters of the Kurdistan Democratic Party in the city, where the demonstrators were gathered. Tension continued on Friday with the spread of security, police and Peshmerga (Kurdish armed men) to restore security and prevent the renewal of violence acts, whilst dozens of young people demonstrated in the city’s Saray square, along with thousands of supportes of the opposition’s Goran (Change) Movement, in front of its headquarters, in protest to the use of violence against the demonstrators, who demanded the trial of those who opened fire on them. The demonstrations and violence acts have created fear among Kurdistan residents, along with their stretch to other areas, whilst three headquarters of the Goran Movement in Arab, Dohuk and Soran cities were attacked, burnt and plundered, but caused no casualties. The Vice-Chairman of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), Nichervan Barzani, had stated on Friday that the politbureaus of the KDP and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), the main ruling parties in Iraqi Kurdistan, have discussed the unification of their positions towards the incidents that took place in Sulaimaniya and to strive to avoid their extention to other areas in Kurdistan, reiterating the right of citizens to demonstrate, demanding reforms within the law. Nichervan Barzani said that the KDP had received intelligence information about possibility for attacks against the Party’s headquarters, adding that the security forces in Sulaimaniya were informed about that but he charged them with having “ignored the information.” Meanwhile, the President of north Iraq’s Kurdistan Region, Massoud Barazani, had issued a statement, calling for the formation of a committee to investigate the said incidents and sending those who committed them to justice and calling on citizens and security bodies to carry out their duties to protect the headquarters of the parties and institutions in Region. Barzani said that “enemies of Kurdistan people are continuing to creat a state of anarchy in the Region, reconfirming that “the Kurdistan people shall stand in the face of all attempts aimed to undermine the experience and achievements.” FT / SKH 634