FILES: Activists in Basra raise banners in October 2025 bearing images of protesters killed during the Tishreen movement. (Photo: 964media)
Political group demands accountability on Tishreen protests anniversary
BAGHDAD — The National Path Current marked the seventh anniversary of the Tishreen protests on Thursday by calling on Iraqi authorities to hold accountable those involved in killing protesters and targeting civil activists.
“On the seventh anniversary of the Tishreen uprising, we remember its martyrs who fell defending Iraqis’ right to a free and fully sovereign homeland, and we honor its wounded young people who stood up to groups that used violence and repression to protect their interests and influence,” the group said in a statement.
The protests began in October 2019 over economic hardship, poor services and state dysfunction, and became the largest wave of demonstrations in Iraq since 2003. The Iraqi Observatory for Human Rights has identified 624 people killed, nearly half of them in Baghdad, more than the 541 deaths the Iraqi High Commission for Human Rights recorded between October 2019 and June 2020. The observatory has warned that continued impunity raises the risk of further violence.
The National Path Current renewed its call for accountability for those involved in killing protesters, and in the killing, kidnapping, torture or disappearance of civil activists targeted for their positions and their opposition to the authorities at the time. “Victims’ rights must not become bargaining chips in political and electoral deals,” it said.
The group called on the state to reopen Tishreen-related cases through the courts, disclose the full circumstances of the violations, hold those responsible accountable and compensate victims and their families. Such steps would protect society’s right to know the truth and prevent similar violations from happening again, it said.
“Tishreen’s martyrs will remain an integral part of Iraq’s national memory, and their demands will remain at the heart of the state we want: one that holds a monopoly on weapons, safeguards freedoms, protects its citizens, treats them equally before the law and makes justice and dignity the basis of its legitimacy,” the statement said.