"Two protesters were shot dead" in the clashes and 21 others were wounded, including five by gunfire, said Hussein Riyad, a spokesman for the Dhi Qar provincial health ministry.

Activist Haidar al-Zaidi, 20, was sentenced to three years in prison over a disputed tweet deemed insulting to a pro-Iran paramilitary force, according to court documents seen by AFP Wednesday.

On Monday, the court in the capital Baghdad delivered its verdict, which Zaidi can appeal.

New York-based advocacy group Human Rights Watch called on the Iraqi authorities not to use the courts as a "tool to suppress peaceful criticism" and called for the activist's immediate release.

Zaidi was prosecuted over a post, long since deleted from his Twitter account, criticising the slain deputy commander of the paramilitary Hashed al-Shaabi force, Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis.

Muhandis was killed in a US drone strike in Baghdad in January 2020 alongside Iranian foreign operations commander General Qasem Soleimani.