Massive protests hit Baghdad’s Radwaniyah over $100M airport land scandal
Baghdad (IraqiNews.com) – A massive public protest erupted in the Radwaniyah district outside Baghdad on Saturday afternoon, May 30, 2026, as local residents gathered to vehemently reject a controversial state land-ownership and investment decree.
The demonstration targeted government plans to hand over expansive tracts of land surrounding Baghdad International Airport to foreign developers, with community leaders issuing an urgent rallying cry to protect local property rights and safeguard ancestral territories from corporate seizure.
The grassroots mobilization follows a series of sharp statements from Ayad al-Jubouri, a Member of Parliament representing the Azm Coalition. In a formal disclosure on Monday, May 25, 2026, al-Jubouri exposed what he characterized as a multi-million-dollar corruption scandal engineered by the National Investment Commission.
The lawmaker revealed that the commission quietly granted an investment license to an Egyptian developer, handing over 5,800 dunams of premium state-adjacent real estate in Radwaniyah for the construction of a massive residential project named Al-Rafeel. Al-Jubouri claimed the Egyptian investor operates through a Saudi Arabian shell company that is not officially registered to do business in Iraq, and further alleged that an illicit $100 million bribe was paid to secure the highly lucrative development rights.
This corporate assignment cuts directly into local infrastructure, as the designated development zone encompasses privately owned real estate belonging to families who have lived there for generations. Member of Parliament al-Jubouri publicly petitioned Prime Minister Ali Falih al-Zaidi to step in immediately, freeze the investment license, and halt an administrative decree that risks the forced displacement of more than 120,000 local residents. Emphasizing the gravity of the territorial dispute, al-Jubouri stressed that the local population would collectively “prefer death over surrendering their lands.”
During Saturday’s assembly, protest organizers announced that their primary goal is to project the community’s grievances directly to the legislative, executive, and judicial branches of government. They demanded an immediate freeze on all planning and construction activities until a comprehensive legal and administrative audit verifies the sovereign legitimacy of the investment contract.
The demonstrators closed the event by issuing a joint memorandum calling upon the President, the Speaker of Parliament, the Prime Minister, the Chief of the Supreme Judicial Council, the Head of the Integrity Commission, and individual lawmakers to launch an independent judicial investigation to unmask every public official involved in brokering the deal.
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المصدر: Iraqi News