Iraq: Sadr supporters shut down rival party's headquarters after 'insults' against leader's father

Supporters of an Iraqi Shia political movement shut down a number of headquarters belonging to a rival party on Saturday evening.

Sadrist Movement supporters accused the Islamic Dawa Party, also a Shia group, of insulting religious scholar Muhammad Sadiq Al-Sadr, the late father of the leader of the movement, Muqtada Al-Sadr.

Party headquarters in places including Sadr City in the capital Baghdad were shut down.

Sadrist Movement supporters wrote "Closed by the order of the sons of Al-Sadr" on most of the locations they shut.

The former head of the Sadrist parliamentary bloc, Hassan Al-Adhari, accused on Facebook on Saturday the Islamic Dawa Party of insulting Muhammad Al-Sadr.

He said clips and posts on social media had "defamed the reputation and biography of our martyr Muhammad Al-Sadr" and "accused him of having a relationship with the Baath regime". The Baath Party was former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein's political organisation.

"It seems that this is being done through an organised media campaign led by some Framework bodies such as the Dawa Party," Al-Adhari added, referring to the Coordination Framework political bloc.

The Dawa Party denied the allegations that have been made against it, saying the offending pages are "fake".

It rejected claims there are pages affiliated with its secretary-general Nouri Al-Maliki or the State of Law Coalition he leads that "insult the great maraji", meaning top-level religious authorities.

Al-Maliki is also a former Iraqi prime minister.

A Basra police officer told The New Arab's Arabic sister site Al-Araby Al-Jadeed that there is a state of tension in the province due to the closure of a number of Dawa Party headquarters.

The officer said security forces have been reinforced in Basra but added that there are "fears of escalation if solutions are not found to absorb the anger of the Sadrist Movement".