(20 Aug 2020) LEAD IN:
Dozens participated in the funeral of Iraqi female activist Reham Yacoub, who was assassinated on Wednesday by unidentified gunmen in the southern province of Basra.

STORY-LINE:
The funeral of respected Iraqi activist Reham Yacoub was held on Thursday, a day after she was gunned down by unidentified gunmen in her city of Basra.
Dozens of mourners carried her coffin, which was wrapped with the Iraqi flag, and marched during the funeral in the southern Iraqi city.
They chanted "the martyr is God's beloved".
Yacoub was also a nutrition specialists, a PhD student, a university lecturer and a fitness trainer.
She participated in many protests in 2018 and last October.
Human rights monitors sounded the alarm over a recent spike in assassinations targeting civil rights activists in Iraq's south.
Assassination plots have targeted more civil activists this month in southern Iraq, compared to the period at the height of the protest movement in October, monitors said.
Yacoub's killing marks the second such killing in the span of a week.
Iran-backed militia groups are widely suspected of perpetrating both.
According to the semi-official Iraqi Independent High Commission for Human Rights, there have been six assassination attempts targeting activists with two killed in Basra in the month of August alone.
That represents a jump as the commission recorded 16 attempted targeted killings in the 10 months after the protest movement started in October.
Tens of thousands of Iraqis took to the streets in October to decry rampant government corruption, poor services and unemployment in Baghdad and across Iraq's south.
Hundreds died as Iraqi forces used live ammunition and tear gas to disperse crowds.

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