People of Kirkuk Demonstrate to Protest Provincial Elections Law

To protest Iraqi Parliament’s decision regarding provincial elections, today August 28th thousands of people have come out into the streets of Kirkuk.

On August 21st Iraqi Parliament passed a law to delay the provincial elections. The law, article 24, says that Kirkuk’s seats are divided equally between the Kurds, Arabs, and Turkmens by 33%, but the Assyrians will be allocated 4% of the seats.

The Kurds, who walked out from the session, consider the law unconstitutional.

Despite of the uncertain security situation of the city, a large number of people estimated by the organizers of the demonstration as more than 250 thousand people early this morning gathered.

The demonstrators were carrying banners urging refuse article 24 and implementation of article 140 of the Iraqi constitution instead. Article 140 does not tolerate the postponement of provincial elections.

A demonstrator says that this protest includes not only the Kurds, but Arabs, Assyrians and even Turkmens are participating here.

“We want democracy, therefore we demonstrate. Article 24 violates both principles of democracy and the Iraqi constitution which represents the Iraqi people. We are here to support democracy” Said Balen Kirkuki, a demonstrator.

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