Iraqi Shiite cleric’s supporters launch sit-in outside top judicial body

By AFP 23 August 2022, 2:13 pm

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Supporters of Iraqi Muslim Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr raise his portrait as they protest outside the headquarters of the Supreme Judicial Council, Iraq's highest judicial body, in the capital Baghdad on August 23, 2022. )Ahmad Al-Rubaye/AFP)

BAGHDAD — Several hundred supporters of Shiite cleric Moqtada Sadr launch a sit-in outside Iraq’s top judicial body today, ratcheting up tensions in a showdown with a rival Shiite alliance.

Caretaker Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhemi cut short a visit to Egypt, where he had been due to take part in a five-nation summit, to return home to monitor developments.

Kadhemi “called on all political parties to calm down and to take advantage of the opportunity for national dialogue to get the country out of its current crisis,” a statement from his office says.

The standoff between rival Shiite factions has triggered an intensifying war of words, but so far no violence.

The Sadrists, who have already been camped outside parliament for the past three weeks, pitched tents outside the gates of the judicial body’s Baghdad headquarters, AFP correspondents report.

They carry placards demanding the dissolution of parliament and new elections, 10 months after an inconclusive poll failed to deliver a majority government.

Even though his political bloc has taken part in previous administrations, securing top jobs in government ministries, Sadr himself has managed to keep above the political fray and is lionized by his supporters as an outsider dedicated to the fight against a corrupt elite.