The battle goes on.

For the 10th day citizens of Najaf continue their protest against the violations against their freedom that are committed by the religious police under the eyes and ears of the governorate council.Abdul Ameer Al Ka’abi, one of the organizers of the protest told Al Jeeran (Iraqi-Kuwaiti Friendship committee site) that the protest started 10 days ago by calls from liberal political parties and civil society organizations in the city and that many Najafies have responded and are continuing their demonstration in front of the Najaf governerate council’s building and they won’t end the protest until their demands are answered. He added explaining the reasons:“The emergency brigade in Najaf started implementing a law that prohibits men from growing their hair or cut it in a western style and also prohibit wearing jeans and carrying mobile phones that has cameras!” He added, “They started with colleges and institutes”And regarding the punishment for those who disobey this law Mr. Al Ka’abi said, “Any man with a long hair get punished by shaving his hair totally (me wonder, isn't that a western style too!?) while those who wear jeans get their cloths torn on them. Mobiles that has cameras get confiscated, not to mention the insults, beating and threats”“What’s worse is that after we started our protest they added a 10 days imprisonment to all these penalties!”He added, “We spoke with Colonel Najah the leader of the brigade and his assistant Major Mohammed Dayikh and they told us that they’re carrying out the orders of the governor of Najaf, but the governorate council denies that and claim it’s all just personal mistakes of some of the police officers!”The protestors plan to carry their demands to the national assembly.From Al Jeeran (Arabic link).This is what I was talking about in my previous post. The religious parties are carrying out their plans in a sneaky way blaming the local government for it and the government which is made mainly from these parties put the blame on personal behaviors. However and as I noted Iraqis are not standing silent. We have never seen such theocratic tyranny before and even committed religious She’at (not fanatics as there’s still a fine line between the two) won’t accept such oppression. We didn’t come this far to give away our freedom to ignorant scum like Sadr, Al Hasani and Al Ya’akoobi (Leaders of another Sadirists trend, as there are 5 of them now). I see this protest as a great sign of hope especially that it comes from a city that is known to be quite religious in general.Meanwhile it seems that someone is putting some of that necessary pressure on Sadr junior that we talked about. In Basra the official office for Muqtada Al Sadr was shut down until further notice by orders from Muqtada. Fatah Al Sheikh the Sadirist PM from the Unified Coalition list told Al Sharq Il Awsat that, “Muqtada ordered his office in Basra to shut down because of some of the misbehaving and wrongful acts of some of its members so that it won’t affect the reputation of other offices in other governorates”Al Sharq Il Awsat tried to call the office but no one answered and some people went to the office in Basra and found its doors closed.From Al Sharq Il Awsat (Arabic link).Of course this could be just a game from Sadr and it does reminds me of the way Saddam used to blame his dogs for any crime he ordered but couldn’t justify. Still I think the demonstrations of the students of Basra that went for weeks must have showed him that there’s a limit to how much he can intimidate people without them retaliating. The battle goes on of course and I have always been optimistic about its end although sadly it may cause many losses.