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Shia Spiritual Leader Describes Iraqi People as “Oppressed” | ASHARQ AL-AWSAT English Archive 2005 -2017
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London, Asharq Al-Awsat- Shia Spiritual leader, Grand Ayatollah Bashir Hussein al Najafi, described the Iraqi people as ‘oppressed’ and called for “consideration into the affairs of the impoverished Iraqis whose gaze, as well as the world’s, rests upon us for salvation. This way we can relate the message to the exploited that someone is thinking of them and that we empathize with their pain.”

He affirmed that Shia Spiritual Leadership is not in any way related or affiliated to the ruling United Iraqi al I’itilaf Party [al I’itilaf al Iraqi al Muwahad].

Asharq Al Awsat received a copy of his report entitled “Assessment of the Current Iraqi Situation” in which al Najafi attacks the “government mechanisms”, which he believes that, “to this moment still cannot put together a clear and comprehensive well-analyzed plan to manage the country’s internal and external politics and to take swift decisions in dealing with the most critical and complicated matters that Iraq faces.” He added that, “one finds that in most cases the decisions clash with one another.”

Al Najafi stressed the critical state resulting from the lack of security and said, “Neither the police, nor the military, nor the National Guard are capable of doing anything worth mentioning. The Iraqi capital is full of assassinations.” Comparing it to a human butchery, he said that the fundamentalists and takfiris had infiltrated the security forces.

The Grand Ayatollah reiterated his vindication of the Shia Spiritual Leadership from such practices and said, “It is unfortunate that there are those who uphold that the Shia Spiritual Leadership is responsible for what’s happening in Iraq in conflicts and crises, especially the loss of security based on the fact that it supported the vote in favor of the constitution first, then the al I’itilaf Party, and that the people were quick to follow despite the obstacles and the hardships they faced. Those who criticize and oppose are unaware that had it not been for the Shia Spiritual Leadership advocacy of the al I’itilaf Party, things would have been very different and the rule would have fallen into the hands of Iraq’s enemies.”