Shafaq News

A lawyer filed a formal complaint on Wednesday asking prosecutors in the Iraqi province of Wasit to summon Hadi al-Ameri, leader of the Badr Organization, over public remarks describing Iraq's 2019 Tishreen protests as "strife" that armed groups he called "the resistance" had confronted.

Families of protesters killed during the demonstrations are separately pursuing court action, according to relatives who spoke to Shafaq News.

Al-Ameri, who is also a prominent leader of the Coordination Framework, a coalition of mainly Iran-aligned Shia parties that dominates Iraq's government, made the comments on Sunday at a ceremony marking the death of Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Baqir al-Hakim, a senior Shia cleric killed in a 2003 bombing in Najaf. In a video that circulated widely, al-Ameri said the resistance "bravely stood against the Tishreen strife and preserved the state and the political system." 

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The Tishreen (October) protests were the largest anti-government movement in Iraq since 2003, beginning in Baghdad and southern provinces on 1 October 2019 over corruption, unemployment and failing public services. Rights groups including Amnesty International said at least 541 protesters were killed and more than 20,000 wounded,

Amnesty said successive governments had formed numerous investigative committees but had made no findings public. Despite at least 2,700 criminal cases being filed over abuses during the protests and their aftermath, few people have been brought to trial and “next to no justice has been delivered,” the organization said, adding that many sentences had been overturned.

The Complaint

Lawyer Hazem Mazen al-Badri submitted his complaint to the head of the Public Prosecution Office in Wasit, seeking to open a case and summon al-Ameri. According to the filing, al-Badri asked prosecutors to authenticate the original video and verify its date, location, and context, to hear al-Ameri's account of which groups he meant, and to compare his statements with earlier investigations and the files of those killed and wounded. 

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Families of the dead have voiced similar demands. Ali al-Dahamat, brother of prominent civil activist Amjad al-Dahamat, who was assassinated in the southern province of Maysan during the protests, told Shafaq News that victims' families were not surprised by the remarks but considered them significant because they came publicly from a senior political and security figure. He said families had appealed to the Supreme Judicial Council and the Public Prosecution to act, and that some had already filed legal complaints against al-Ameri.

Bahaa al-Sarai, brother of activist Safaa al-Sarai, who was also killed during the protests, said on Tuesday that he intended to file suit over the remarks.

Ali al-Abadi, head of the Iraq Center for Human Rights, called on the Supreme Judicial Council and government bodies to open a transparent investigation, and urged the United Nations and the International Criminal Court to take up the case, according to a statement he issued Wednesday.

The Badr response

The Badr Organization rejected interpretations of al-Ameri's remarks as an admission of involvement in suppressing the protests. Abdul-Hussein al-Zalimi, a Badr official, told Shafaq News that al-Ameri had not meant the protest movement or its early demands for services and reform, which “drew support from the Shia religious authority and broad sections of society.”

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Al-Zalimi said al-Ameri was instead referring to those he accused of later diverting the movement and introducing outside agendas, and that Iraqi leaders had spoken at the time of “a foreign hand” behind some of the killings of protesters and security personnel.

The dispute revives a contested account from 2019, when officials spoke of an unidentified "third party" targeting both protesters and security forces, while rights groups and activists attributed killings, abductions and assassinations to security forces and armed factions. No comprehensive, public judicial ruling has since assigned responsibility for the full range of abuses committed during the protests.

The Tishreen movement forced the resignation of Prime Minister Adil Abdul-Mahdi's government in November 2019 and led to early elections in October 2021. Al-Badri's complaint now rests with the Wasit public prosecutor, who has not announced a decision on whether to summon al-Ameri.