Ayatollah Aale-Radhi:

Najaf Seminary supports Iraqi anti-corruption protests

Rasa – A professor in the Islamic Seminary of Najaf has offered his support on behalf of the Najaf Seminary for the popular protests against Iraqi government corruption, calling these protests a “second revolution.”

News ID: 3246

Date: 30 August 2015 - 18:42

RNA – Speaking during his jurisprudence class in the Islamic Seminary of Najaf, Ayatollah Hadi Aale-Radhi, a prominent scholar based in the holy Iraqi city, stated that the protests currently taking place in several cities in Iraq against the strife-torn country’s poor services and government corruption are aimed at regaining the people’s rights and to reform state agencies and departments.

“We in the Islamic Seminary must not remain silent in the face of the current issues occurring in our country,” he said.

The Iraqi scholar said the Seminary and Shi’a scholars have a duty to guide protests in the correct context and provide recommendations to the protestors so that they don’t resort to deviancy and chaos to attain their goals.

Ayatollah Aale-Radhi explained that we must understand the people should not join the demonstrators and assume that their only duty is to help and support the people’s rights but that the popular protests in the country are a revolution and a second war, and added that the demonstrators should remember the goal of these protests is to gain victory in both the wars.

He emphasized that otherwise, there would be serious consequences for Iraq and the great dangers of the division and disintegration of Iraq would threaten us.

Ayatollah Aale-Radhi said that the aim of the enemies is not just to divide Iraq, but by dividing Iraq, they seek to also weaken the entire region so that they can easily hand it over, piece by piece, to the Wahhabis and their mercenaries.

In recent weeks, the people of Iraq have gone to the streets of different cities of their country to protest the very poor services and the widespread financial and administrative corruption in the country.

The country’s most senior Shi’ite authority, Grand Ayatollah Sayyid Ali al-Sistani, also endorsed the protests and called on Prime Minister Haydar al-Abadi to implement the necessary reforms courageously and as quickly as possible.

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