"Yes, yes to Sistani; no, no to selection," chanted Iraqi demonstrators

BASRA, January 15 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) - Tens of thousands of Iraqis took to the streets of the southern city of Basra Thursday, January 15, demanding direct elections to select a sovereign Iraqi government.

Demonstrators poured into the area around Basra's main mosque and chanted "Yes, yes to Sistani; no, no to selection," Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported.

Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, a prominent Shiite religious authority, had repeatedly called for general elections to choose an interim assembly instead of being handpicked by the U.S.-led occupation authority as was the case with the Interim Governing Council (IGC).

Demonstrators came form all corners of Basra and its surrounding areas answering a call by Ali Abdul Karim Safi al-Mussawi, Sistani's representative in southern Iraq.

Al-Musawi told the crowd that Shiites would seek their goals by peaceful means - for now.

"We do not need to use violence to get our rights while there are still peaceful ways we can work together," he said.

"But if we find peaceful means are no longer available to us we will have to seek other methods," he threatened.

Demonstrators also called for U.N. authorization of handover plans.

Abdul Aziz Al-Hakim, a Shiite leaders and a member of the Governing Council, wrote to U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan late last year asking the world body to study the possibility of early elections or to find a compromise between various positions on how to choose a national assembly.

Replying, Annan argued it was technically impossible to organize elections by June and stopped short of promising U.N. action in solving the dispute or endorsing the current process, Reuters said.

The BBC correspondent in Basra said she did not hear a single shot fired - testament, she says, to the power of the Shiite scholars who had called for a peaceful protest.

Iraqi police were seen everywhere as helicopters of the British forces, which occupy Basra, hovered overhead.

Ayatollah Sistani has rejected the creation of caucuses that would put in place by May a transitional assembly, which in turn would select members of a caretaker government by June, as outlined in the November 15 power agreement between the U.S.-led occupation authority and the Governing Council.

He demanded direct elections to the assembly, saying "he wants the Iraqi people to be consulted, and that elections be held for the municipal councils as well as the legislative council".

The veteran scholar maintained that despite the lack of a reliable census in Iraq, elections can still be held on the basis of the food ration cards distributed to the population under the former regime.

But U.S. civil administrator Paul Bremer claimed that Iraq's war-torn infrastructure does not yet allow general elections.

The argument was ridiculed by many Iraqis as showing fears that the status of U.S. forces in Iraq should be subject to approval by any transitional elected authority.

Anti-American sentiments are rising among ordinary Iraqis, as may call for an end to occupation and return of the situation to normal in the oil-rich country.

Hundreds of people took to the streets of the southern city of Amara on January 11, a day after six Iraqis were killed when British troops and Iraqi police opened fire on a job rally.