Iraqi protesters rallied and many schools stayed closed Tuesday as the United Nations stepped up pressure on the government to agree to a raft of reforms.
While security forces again faced off with activists around Baghdad's Tahrir (Liberation) Square, teachers and students went on strike across much of the Shiite-majority south.
The UN has proposed a reform plan that demands an immediate end to the violence that has killed more than 300 people since the start of October, as well as a host of reform measures.
The UN's top Iraq representative, Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert, met with Iraq's top religious authority on Monday, days after influential neighbour Iran brokered a political deal to keep the ruling system in place.
Iraq's Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani has backed the UN plan but said he feared political forces were not "serious" about enacting the required reforms.
Hennis-Plasschaert was due to attend a special parliamentary session this week in Baghdad, where demonstrators appeared bolstered by her visit.
"We're optimistic about the UN and I respect her visit to Sistani," said one demonstrator, Ali Kadhem, 33, at the main protest site of Tahrir Square.
"Let them intervene more in Iraq. We want them here. Our people were starved, killed. We've been through everything."
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