AhlulBayt News Agency

source : Reuters
Saturday

23 April 2011

7:30:00 PM
238169

Thousands of Iraqis Show Solidarity with Bahraini Protesters, Want Saudis to Withdraw from Bahrain

Thousands of Iraqi people rallied in Baghdad on Saturday to demand the immediate withdrawal of Saudi troops from Bahrain.

(Ahlul Bayt News Agency) - Thousands of Iraqi people rallied in Baghdad on Saturday to demand the immediate withdrawal of Saudi troops from Bahrain.

Thousands people around the World have expressed anger over the movement of forces from gulf states into Bahrain to help its royal family squash pro-democracy rallies.

Protesters in central Baghdad on Saturday chanted "no to al-Saud." Some carried banners which read "Saudi occupation should end" and "Why is there Arab silence toward the massacres committed in Bahrain?."

"We advise (our) brothers in Saudi Arabia to immediately withdraw from Bahrain," Hadi al-Amiri, Iraq's transportation minister and head of the Badr Organization, which arranged the protest, said in an address to demonstrators.

Badr is the former armed wing of the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council (ISCI), a main faction in Iraq's Shi'ite alliance, which also includes that of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki.

Maliki has criticized the intervention by Gulf states in Bahrain and said it could spark a sectarian war in the region.

Amri criticized Bahraini authorities for suppressing its population and asked the Arab League and human rights groups to do fact-finding missions in the Gulf Arab kingdom.

"Barbarian acts against people asking for freedom should stop and the Saudi occupation is not tolerated anymore," Hadi al-Ghurabi, a Shi'ite cleric said.

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