Hundreds of oil workers protest against oil law

Above: Oil workers wear face masks and carry a coffin, both bearing the Arabic word for 'freedom', during today's demonstration.

About 300 oil industry workers gathered in Iraq's main oil port of Basra on Monday to protest a draft law that they said would allow foreigners to pillage the country's wealth.

"To compensate for the military and political failure of the US administration in Iraq, this administration is trying to control the country's wealth," the organisers said in a statement distributed to reporters.

"If this is endorsed by the parliament it would abolish sovereignty and hand over the wealth of this generation and the generations to come as a gift to the occupier," the statement said.

The protesters, employees of the Oil Pipelines Company, wore black surgical masks over their faces and carried banners and black coffins with the word "freedom" written on the sides.

At issue is a clause in the draft hydrocarbon law allowing for production-sharing agreements with foreign oil companies, which many Iraqis see as a throwback to an earlier era of colonial exploitation.

Read the rest at Yahoo News

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