“We've done more in two months than the state has done in 16 years,” said Haydar Chaker, a construction worker from Babylon province, south of the capital.
With border guards, clean-up crews and hospitals, Iraqi protesters have created a mini-state in Baghdad's Tahrir Square, offering the kinds of services they say their government has failed to provide.
Everyone has their role, from cooking bread to painting murals, with a division of labour and scheduled shifts.
Chaker, who came to Baghdad with his friends after the annual Arbaeen pilgrimage to the Shiite holy city Karbala, he provides three meals every day to hundreds of protesters, cooking with donated food.
He is doing this out of his pilgrim's tent and cooking equipment, which has proven useful at the protest encampment and is installed in the iconic square whose name means 'liberation'.
“We don't need special training to detect saboteurs and keep them out... or to be able to defend our state,” he added, alertly scanning the perimeter.
The UN on Wednesday reported that deliberate killings, abduction and arbitrary detention continue against Iraqi anti-government demonstrators by unknown groups.
The report from the UN Assistance Mission in Iraq read, “The government must identify those groups responsible without delay and hold perpetrators accountable." The report comes amid a string of deliberate killings and arrests of civil activists and journalists fostering fear among protesters.
On Friday, their “state” came under attack, when gunmen Iraqi authorities have failed to identify stormed a parking building occupied by protesters. The massacre left 24 dead and has led to the protesters to install new checkpoints and shut down an 18-storey building overlooking the square.
The mini-state, though under threat of infiltration by intelligence agents and gunmen who can cross police and military roadblocks at will, want to be committed to non-violence, say protesters.
But in a country where the influence and arsenals of pro-Iran armed groups continue to increase, the protest enclave has allied with another of Iraq's states within a state.
They coordinated with logistics cells to stock medication that was donated or bought at a discount from sympathetic pharmacies.
Clinics are being lit at night by jerry-rigged connections to the municipal high-tension wires and during power cuts, the protesters are relying on purchased generators.
In front of the field clinics, as tuk-tuks zoom between clusters of protesters, dozens of volunteers sweep the pavement. Tahrir has never been so clean, protesters say, in contrast to its previous neglect by municipal workers.
