Dozens of unemployed persons demonstrate in southern Iraq’s Numaniya township

WASSIT / IraqiNews.com: Dozens of unemployed persons have demonstrated in front of the Council building of Numaniya township in southern Iraq’s Missan Province on Tuesday, demanding their coverage with the social protection network and the resignation of the Municipal Council and the township’s Mayor, one of the demonstration’s organizers said.   “About 350 unemployed persons have demonstrated early Tuesday in front of the Municipal Council’s building in Numaniya township, 40 kms to the north of Kut, the center of Missan Province, demanding their coverage with the social protection network or employment in state departments,” Muntathar Salim told IraqiNews.com news agency.   He said the “demonstrators have raised placards, reading: ‘Today criticism, tomorrow punishment,’ demanding the resignation of the township’s municipal council and its mayor, charging that they had not been efficient enough during the past period.”   Another demonstrator, called Amjad al-Sabbagh, said: “the demonstrators, who represent Numaniya’s young generation, including university graduates, have organized their peaceful demonstration, demanding the rights for coverage in the social protection network or their employment in state departments.”   “The Numaniya young men are suffering nowadays from continuous unemployment, failing to find job opportunities, apart from the deterioration of services, despite existence of three members in the Provincial Council and two Legislatures, representing this area,” he said.   He said a delegation, representing the demonstrators, had handed over their demands to the township’s municipal council, to raise them to the Province’s Council, “whilst we are insisting on the resignation of the municipal council and the Mayor of the township.”   Noteworthy is that Wassit Province had witnessed huge demonstrations on Feb. 16th last, that attacked the Province’s Council building, burning its contracts office, the Governor’s office, his personal residence, in protest to the deteriorated services, shortage of the government’s Rational Card’s ingredients, postponement of the judicial order to sack the Governor, accounting the corrupt elements, that caused 55 injuries and one man who was killed. The Province had witnessed several other demonstrations and sit-up occasions, demanding the resignation of the Governor of Wassit’s Kut center city, Latif Hamad al-Turfa.   On Friday, Feb. 18th last, Major-General , Ali Gheidan, the Representative of Iraq’s Prime Minister, Nouri al-Maliki, met the representatives of the demonstrations, raising their demands for Maliki, at his capacity as Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces.   Kut, the center of Missan Province, is 180 kms to the southeast of the Iraqi capital of Baghdad.   SKH(FT)/SR 582