The protesters, gathered in Hilla 100 km (62 miles) south of Baghdad, carried banners and chanted anti-Hashemi slogans, calling for him to be punished.
A protester said they are protesting over the recent spate of bombings and sectarian violence which had reared its ugly head in Baghdad due to the inhumane acts of the Vice-President,so Al-Hashemi be prosecuted under the Iraqi penal law.
Shi’ite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki this week sought Sunni Vice President Tareq al-Hashemi’s arrest on terrorism charges and moved to fire a Sunni deputy. The move risks unravelling Iraq’s fragile power-sharing deal among Shi’ite, Sunni and Kurdish blocs who have struggled to overcome tensions just a few years after sectarian slaughter drove the country to the edge of civil war.
The interior ministry showed taped confessions, aired on state-run Iraqiya television and other local media, of men it claimed were members of Hashemi’s security detail. The men said they had been paid by his office to carry out killings.
The political struggle between Shi’ite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki and his Sunni rivals in the country’s delicate power-sharing deal has intensified during the withdrawal of the last U.S. troops nearly nine years after the invasion.
Fearing a deepening crisis that could push Iraq back into sectarian turmoil, senior Iraqi politicians were holding talks with Maliki and other leaders to contain the dispute.