For some six weeks, Iraqi Sunnis have kept their anti-government protests peaceful by trying to air their grievances and press their demands while distancing themselves from violent insurgency groups such as former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein’s diehard loyalists and the Al-Qaeda terror organisation.

While they have risen up against what they consider to be their marginalisation by the country’s Shia-led government, the Sunnis have also reached out to disgruntled Iraqi Shias and dubbed their protests the “Iraqi Spring” in emulation of the 2011 Arab Spring that toppled autocratic and corrupt regimes in three Arab countries.

However, the clashes this weekend between protesters and army troops in which several people were killed, including two soldiers, have shaken the country and sparked concerns that the peaceful rallies could turn violent.

Worse, the showdown in the town of Falluja in the Sunni heartland of western Iraq, which has boasted of the use of force to fight government troops, has raised the alarm that Iraq could descend to the bloodbaths of the sectarian war that spiked in 2006 and 2007.

The details are conflicting about the confrontation in Falluja. Government officials said protesters had tried to cross an army checkpoint on the outskirts of the town and had thrown rocks at soldiers, who opened fire in response.

 Representatives of the protesters said the firing had been unwarranted. Later, two soldiers were shot dead at another of the town’s checkpoints, in apparent retaliation for Friday’s clashes.

The Falluja protest was one of several across Sunni-majority areas of Iraq that have raged in recent weeks, hardening the opposition to the Shia-led government of Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki amid political turmoil and a deterioration in security following the US withdrawal in December 2011, nine years after the beginning of its occupation.

The unrest erupted after security forces arrested members of Sunni minister of finance Rafia Al-Essawi’s security staff in December on charges of terrorism. The crackdown has enflamed Iraq’s lingering political tensions, which have been heightened since an arrest warrant was issued against Sunni vice-president Tarek Al-Hashimi, one of Al-Essawi’s political allies, in December 2011.

Al-Hashimi was accused of leading death squads and was later sentenced to multiple death sentences.

The protesters also claimed that thousands of fellow Sunnis, including women, were in prison accused of terrorism, some without being charged. They alleged that female inmates had been abused and even raped by prison or police officials, a charge denied by the government.

The protesters accused the government of sidestepping the Sunni minority in the country, which has been politically dominated by the Shia majority since the overthrow of Saddam’s Sunni regime. They also complained of poor government services and a lack of economic progress in Sunni areas.

Initially, the protesters denounced the crackdown on the Sunnis and then demanded the ending of what they described as their marginalisation and discriminatory measures against them, such as the de-Baathification law which bans senior members of the former Saddam regime from government employment.

They have also demanded modifications to the anti-terrorism laws and an amnesty for Sunni prisoners convicted on terrorism charges.

Al-Maliki has agreed to meet the Sunni protesters half-way and has promised to release some prisoners, but he has remained non-committal about the protesters’ demands to abolish the de-Baathification and anti-terrorism measures.

“If we did that, it would mean that the [former ruling] Baath Party would make a comeback, and we would find ourselves again in prison,” he told Al-Baghdadiya television on Sunday.

In return, the Sunnis have hardened their positions and called on Al-Maliki to resign. They also want to abolish the political process forged by the US occupation authority, which they believe has empowered the Shias at their expense.

In the face of the army intervention in Falluja, Sunni tribal leaders threatened to launch attacks against the army in the western province of Anbar, which has been the centre of the protests.

The leaders said they had given the government one week to arrest the soldiers responsible for opening fire on the crowd. On Sunday, eight missiles were fired on a military camp in the province.

The threats to resort to arms, whether real or rhetorical, have raised serious questions about what options the protesters have if the Shia-led government remains unwilling to make compromises on their key demands.

This is the nub of the issues that the Sunnis will have to address as they insist on embracing and defending their stated goals.

Many Sunnis resorted to arms after the overthrow of Saddam, only to abandon the insurgency later and become actively involved in the political process, raising hopes that the Sunnis would finally join in rebuilding the country following the US withdrawal.

Only Al-Qaeda and a few other small groups said they would fight on to topple the Shia-led government.

Many observers believe that a large-scale insurgency now is not a viable strategy for Sunnis to achieve their goals of ending marginalisation and discrimination.

Genuinely standing up to the Shia-led government and its army militarily would require more than bombings and clashes with the security forces, since these may inflict deaths and destruction but they are unlikely to achieve political objectives and could draw sectarian reprisals.

Most Sunnis live in Baghdad and other ethnically mixed provinces where they are outnumbered by Shias. Sectarian strife could trigger ethnic cleansing that could drive them out of the capital to Sunni pockets in the provinces in a strategic muddle not guided by any clearly calculated long-term vision.

Also, if the government pulls out the army and federal police force from Sunni areas in response to the threats, Al-Qaeda and other hardline groups will return and gain control of them.

Since the start of the protests in late December Al-Qaeda has mounted a violent campaign against Iraqi military barracks, checkpoints, and security forces in Baghdad, Diyala, and Anbar provinces.

The attacks have reinforced the government’s claim that the protests have been infiltrated by extremists such as Al-Qaeda and members of Saddam’s Baath Party, who have been trying to steer them away from peaceful demonstrations and use Sunni areas to launch terrorist attacks against the government and security forces.

If anything has been demonstrated by the protests, it is that sectarianism and inter-ethnic conflicts have been major forces shaping Iraq and the structure and stability of the state since the US withdrawal.

Ten years after the US-led invasion of the country, the process had wound up almost exactly where it started — an Iraq embodied in a US-engineered structure, a divided nation, and a failed state.

Iraqi Sunni Arabs are strongly opposed to the federal system forged by the US occupation, which strengthened the hands of the Shias in the south and the Kurds in the north at their expense.

The Sunnis, who maintained political power in modern Iraq until the overthrow of the Saddam regime, may never feel truly part of the nation without the crucial first step of reintegrating them on a more equitable basis.

On the other hand, it is impossible to conceive of any sustainable outcome in Iraq without a political agreement based on recognising the Shias as the majority wielding power appropriate to their numbers and addressing their past misgivings and fears of marginalisation and accommodating Kurdish aspirations to self-rule.

Through their mass protests, Iraqi Sunnis have made their voices heard, but they now have to find an appropriate strategy to lure the Shias into broaching a new deal, one that begins moving in the direction of reforming the political process towards one based on citizenship and democracy and not sectarian power-sharing.

For nearly a month now, Iraqi Sunni Arabs have been pouring into the streets across the country to protest against what they perceive as their unjust share in the country’s wealth and power and marginalisation by the Shia-led government in Baghdad.

Although Sunni demands have centred on ending what they say is their discrimination and exclusion, the tipping point for the protests, which have triggered the country’s worst political crisis in years, were allegations of the rape of Sunni women detained in Iraqi jails.

The row started on 29 November during a parliamentary debate on violence against woman when some Sunni lawmakers presented a report claiming that there had been systematic violation, torture and rape of female inmates in Iraqi jails and demanded that the Iraqi government and judiciary put an end to the abuse.

A heated parliamentary conversation later turned into fistfights, as Shia members accused their Sunni colleagues of fabricating the report and attempting to defame the Shia-led security forces.

The row later moved outside the parliament, as Sunni politicians, media and clergy demanded the release of Sunni women prisoners and the bringing of the alleged offenders to account.

Iraq’s Interior Ministry, which is responsible for the country’s police, and the Ministry of Justice, in charge of prisons, denied the accusations. The Ministry of Justice also prevented a team of lawmakers from visiting prisons to probe the allegations.

Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki, who scoffed at the charges, promised scrutiny of prison officials and punishment for any found guilty.

After the Sunni protests, Al-Maliki named a committee that included two key Sunni clerics to investigate the allegations. A committee member later said they couldn’t find evidence of rape inside the prisons, but he didn’t rule out that some cases could have occurred during the investigation process.

The government says there are some 1,000 women prisoners in Iraq who were lawfully arrested with legal arrest warrants issued by the judiciary. It says that many of the jailed Sunni women were charged with terrorism, such as attempts to carry out bomb attacks.

Some Shia politicians have even blamed the victims for their “increased libido” inside the prisons, suggesting that they may have seduced their interrogators and guards.

On the other hand, Iraq’s Sunni Arab politicians have attempted in the past to increase public criticism of the Shia political class as a result of what they have described as attempts to whitewash the government’s indifference towards abuses carried out by Shia security forces, charges which Shia politicians dismiss as fabrications.

There is a growing fear that both sides are trying to manipulate the public clamour over the rape cases in the political contest ahead of the local elections in April.

During Iraq’s worst period of civil strife in 2007, a Sunni woman identified by the pseudonym of Sabrin Al-Janabi, told Al-Jazeera television that four Iraqi officers had raped her over a four-hour period after accusing her of aiding insurgents.

The claim, which had the potential to drive Iraq to a full-scale sectarian war, later turned out to be untrue.

While the ongoing sectarian row has raised fears of communal tension, it has also turned the spotlight on the rape of women as a vile crime that can hinder nation-building or the establishment of a value system that reflects human rights principles and gender equality. 

Under the regime of former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein, rape cases were not unusual but offenders also received harsh punishments, including the death sentence.

Nevertheless, among the shocking stories of brutalities committed during Saddam’s rule were rapes committed by his associates, including his maverick eldest son Odai.

During the US occupation of 2003-2011, Iraq struggled with stories of human rights violations in the form of physical, psychological, and sexual abuse, including torture, and reports of rape and sodomy carried out by US soldiers.

Some of these acts, committed by US military personnel or governmental contractors in Abu Ghraib prison, came to public attention. On 12 March 2006, a 14-year-old Iraqi girl was gang-raped and killed by US army soldiers in Al-Mahmoudiya, a town south of Baghdad.

The soldiers also murdered her entire family and burned their house. Five soldiers were charged with the crimes.

There were also several cases of the reported rapes of US female soldiers by their colleagues in Iraq. While most of these cases were hushed up, US army reserve staff Sergeant Sandra Lee, raped twice while serving in Iraq, shared her story in interviews with several US media.

Beyond this handful of publicised cases, there is also ample anecdotal evidence that Iraqi and American troops raped women and men during the period when Iraq was under US occupation.

Reports have said that the Iraqi authorities that took over power after the Americans left the country continued the same policies as the US occupiers. Some of these reports have suggested that the Iraqi authorities have used the same excuses and tactics as the United States in order to evade their responsibilities.

Publicised rape cases and growing fears among many Iraqis of such a mentality and culture of impunity back up such a conclusion.

Last year, there were several cases of rape that made the headlines because of their brutality. In Basra, a four-year-old girl, Banin Haider, was raped and murdered. A few weeks later, a five-year-old girl, Abeer Ali, was also raped and murdered in Thiqar north of Basra.

A soldier was later arrested in connection with Banin’s murder. He was later tried and found guilty and sentenced to death for abusing and killing the child.

A few days before the latest controversy started, the governor of Nineveh, Atheel Al-Nujaifi, revealed that an underaged girl had been raped by an army officer in the outskirts of Mosul, the provincial capital.

He said that the army had refused to hand the officer over to the local police for investigation and warned of discontent in the province.

These rape crimes by sometimes off-duty soldiers, such as in Banin’s case, and reports of rampant corruption in the security forces, have led many Iraqis to worry about what might be happening inside the country’s prisons.

Regardless of the sectarian brawl in Iraq, the news of women being raped in prison is alarming. Many Iraqis believe that these are not isolated incidents, and that they could be related to a culture of indiscipline among the highly unprofessional security forces.

During the Sunni protests and in broadcasts on Sunni-run television stations, activists have given horrible accounts of the rape of female inmates held in secret prisons. Among the secret prisons named was the Al-Muthanna Airport Prison.

In their 2011 reports on Iraq, the international NGOs Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch stated that the Al-Muthanna Prison, a disused airport, was reportedly controlled by the office of Al-Maliki, a charge denied by his office.

Remarkably, there has been no independent inquiry into the allegations of rape in Iraqi prisons, indicating insensitivity and inaction on the part of the government. Neither the United Nations nor respected human rights groups have indicated they are taking any action to probe these accusations.

In a country where violence is the norm and sentiments can be superheated, there are concerns that the abuse of women and even rape could be overlooked as only the temporary side-effects or unsettling consequences of the political climate.

Rape may not be endemic or a cultural phenomena in Iraq, but the rhetoric triggered by the Sunni accusations should be a wake-up call for the Iraqi authorities, civil society and the religious establishment to launch a national debate about violence against women, causing the state to take the necessary measures to stop such heinous abuses.