2019–2021 Iraqi protests

A series of demonstrations, marches, sit-ins and civil disobedience took place in Iraq from 2019 until 2021. It started on 1 October 2019, a date which was set by civil activists on social media, spreading mainly over the central and southern provinces of Iraq, to protest corruption, high unemployment, political sectarianism, inefficient public services and foreign interventionism. Protests spread quickly, coordinated over social media, to other provinces in Iraq. As the intensity of the demonstrations peaked in late October, protesters’ anger focused not only on the desire for a complete overhaul of the Iraqi government but also on driving out Iranian influence, including Iranian-aligned Shia militias. The government, with the help of Iranian-backed militias responded brutally, using live bullets, marksmen, hot water, hot pepper gas and tear gas against protesters, leading to many deaths and injuries.

The protesters called for the end of the muhasasa system, existing since the first post-Saddam sovereign Iraqi government in 2006, in which government positions are being parceled out to the (presumed) ethnic or sectarian communities in Iraq like Shia, Sunni and Kurds, based on their presumed size, purportedly leading to incompetent and corrupt politics. The protests, which were the largest of their kind in Iraq since the 2003 American invasion, gave rise to the October Protest Movement.