BAGHDAD — Sporadic protests have rippled through Iraq over the last few weeks, as oil workers and nightclub owners, communications workers and communists try to yoke the energy and outrage that toppled President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt.
On Saturday, a 31-year-old father in northern Iraq, despondent after failing to find steady work, doused himself with heating oil and set himself ablaze, his family said. It was an echo of the self- immolation that incited an upheaval in Tunisia and then rippled across North Africa.
So far, the demonstrations in Iraq have attracted modest interest and had little visible impact.
“We are still in evolution,” said Fouad Qasim, 25, who said he had not worked since losing his job with a U.S. military contractor three years ago.
Protesters are not interested in toppling Iraq’s leadership. Iraq, after all, is run by democratically elected lawmakers who forged a coalition government in November after eight months of political paralysis.
Protesters said they could live with the current government but simply wanted better jobs, reliable electricity, clean streets and security. About one in five Iraqis is unemployed, though the overall rate of underemployment is thought to be much higher.
The New York Times
