Iraqi parliament holds first reading for general amnesty, personal status bills

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - The Iraqi parliament completed the first reading of a bill calling for amending the definition of affiliation to terrorism in the General Amnesty Law, as well as the highly-controversial amendment to the Personal Status Law, which effectively would legalize child marriage.

The proposed amendment to the 2016 General Amnesty Law was a primary demand by Sunni blocs, when they agreed to join the ruling State Administration Coalition with the Shiite Coordination Framework and Kurdish blocs to form the current Iraqi cabinet.

The Sunnis argue thousands from their community have been unjustly imprisoned in Shiite-dominiated Iraq since 2003 due to alleged links to terrorist groups.

Article 4, Section 2 of the law excludes perpetrators of  “terrorist crimes that resulted in murder or permanent disability, the crime of sabotaging state institutions, the crime of fighting the Iraqi armed forces, and every terrorist crime that they contributed to committing by aiding, inciting, or agreeing.”

The proposed amendment on the parliament’s agenda suggests adding a definition to being affiliated with a terrorist group as “anyone who worked in terrorist organizations, recruited members for them, committed criminal acts, helped in any way to carry out a terrorist act, or whose name was found in the records of terrorist organization.”

The bill was proposed by the Iraqi parliament’s legal, security and defense, and human rights committees.

The legislature also carried out the first reading of a bill to amend the 1959 Personal Status Law, which would allow Iraqis to choose either the Shiite or Sunni sect’s rules at the time of marriage to govern all personal status-related matters in wedlock.

The proposed bill specifies following the provisions of the Jaafari school of jurisprudence for the Shiite sect, which permits marriage for girls as young as nine and boys at fifteen.

The bill has sparked criticism from human and women rights' activists, with large demonstrations held in protest in the Iraqi capital of Baghdad.

The first readings for both bills were initially set for the July 24 parliamentary session, but were postponed due to disagreements between the lawmakers.

Srwa Mohammed, a Kurdish MP, told Rudaw’s Hastyar Qadir that the Shiite blocs agreed to adding the reading of general amnesty bill to Sunday’s agenda in return for the Sunnis approving to add the reading of the personal status bill.

The proposed amendment to the General Amnesty Law comes amid an alarming increase in the rate of executions at Iraqi prisons. Rights watchdog Amnesty International repeatedly has slammed Iraqi authorities this year over multiple executions of more than ten prisoners in one day.  

More than 8,000 prisoners are purportedly on death row in Iraq, with at least 150 at the imminent risk of execution, according to Amnesty.