The arrests are a sign that the semiautonomous government in one of the nation’s most peaceful areas is taking a hard-line approach against demonstrators clamoring for reforms and an end to corruption.
A security official said one of the clerics, Mulla Mohammed Nasrallah, was charged simply for leading prayers in a public square and urging continued protests the day after deadly clashes between police and anti-government demonstrators in February. The security official spoke on condition of anonymity.
Qadir Hama, spokesman for the Asayish, the security force in the Kurdish region in Iraq’s north, refused to comment on Nasrallah’s case. He said the other cleric, Kamran Ali, was arrested Thursday for a March prayer in which he allegedly called the protests a kind of jihad, or holy war. Nasrallah was arrested Sunday in Sulaimaniyah, 260 km northeast of Baghdad.
“He did nothing wrong,” said his wife, Fatima Mahmoud.
“He was calling upon the protesters to resort to peaceful means to achieve their goals. And he demanded the Kurdish government not use violence against the protesters and listen to their demands.” Nasrallah led prayers in Sulaimaniyah’s Azadi Square on Feb. 18, the day after security forces opened fire on protesters, killing two and wounding 47. The security official said his calls then to continue the demonstrations amounted to inciting violence.
Kurdish political analyst Shwan Mohammed said the clerics’ arrests could cause a backlash and bring even more violence. Instead of solutions, he said, the Kurdish government “comes up with more crackdowns and arrests.”
The US military announced that an American soldier died Sunday in a noncombat incident in northern Iraq. The statement Monday gave no details and withheld the soldier’s name pending notification of next of kin. The death raises to at least 4,444 the number of US military personnel who have died in Iraq since the war began in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.
Meanwhile, Iraq handed over the remains of 17 Iranian soldiers killed in the grinding war between the two countries throughout the 1980s in a sign of their improving ties since the fall of Saddam Hussein. The International Committee of the Red Cross supervised the handover through a border crossing near Basra, agency spokesman Mohammed Salman said.
