The Freedom of Expression Act guaranteed harsh penalties and allowed the prime minister to prevent d

The Freedom of Expression Act guaranteed harsh penalties and allowed the prime minister to prevent demonstrations


 Baghdad / Wael Ne'ma

The House of Representatives postponed, for the third time, within a week, the controversial "Freedom of Expression and Demonstration" law.
The delay came after pressure from dozens of organizations active in the field of freedom of expression and human rights, which refuses to legislate the law at the current session, for the existence of items threatening freedom of expression. These organizations fear, according to parliamentarians, the adoption of the copy of the law coming from the government, which carries punitive items and gives freedom to the government to accept or refuse to conduct demonstrations.

Yesterday, the media leaked the latest draft of the Freedom of Expression Act, which was supposed to be put in yesterday's session, which was said to have been submitted by the National Alliance and included most of the items that drew criticism.
The parliament had withdrawn from the bill to vote in the session last Thursday, and decided to postpone it to Saturday, and then decided to postpone the bill to the meeting on Monday, but it fell again.
The Speaker of the House of Representatives Salim al-Jubouri, the competent committees, legal, human rights, security, defense, culture, information, endowments and religious affairs, to "accelerate the maturation of the draft law for the purpose of voting at the next meeting." A number of civil society organizations, in May, Draft Freedom of Expression Bill, in view of the violation of the proposed constitution for the constitutionally guaranteed essence of freedom of expression.
The Parliament presented early May the draft (the law of freedom of expression and assembly and peaceful demonstration). Article 38, an umbrella organization for civil organizations and activists called Article 38 of the Constitution, which guaranteed freedom of expression, organized a press conference at the time, expressing its refusal to return to the current wording of the law. And called for fundamental amendments to it.
The law was introduced for the first time in parliament in 2011 and witnessed fierce opposition from activists, interested parties and civil society organizations, which considered the law to be a flagrant violation of the principles of the Iraqi constitution and international covenants. As a result, the Iraqi Parliament was forced to postpone the legislation of the law until the observations of representatives of civil society were taken.
"The civil society organizations have recognized for the first time that they do not want to pass the law in the current parliament," says Ashwaq al-Jaf, a member of the Human Rights Committee. "The organizations gave us observations and we guarantee them in the drafts, but for the first time we discovered that they were afraid to pass them from the ground at the moment," she said in a statement.
"The organizations fear that parliament will ignore the proposals and drafts on the law and take the government version." Civil society organizations, according to Jaf, are concerned about the two paragraphs of "notification and authorization of demonstrations in law" and "penalties". The new draft, presented yesterday to parliament, presented two proposals on Article 7, which explain the mechanism for organizing demonstrations and obtaining government approval. The first proposal stipulated that the government should be notified at least five days ago, and the head of the administrative unit could refuse in case of "threatening national security or public order."
While the other proposal to withdraw the right of government agencies to accept or reject the notification. But the same article goes back to the third paragraph, saying, "If the head of the administrative unit rejects the request, the organizer of the demonstration has the right to challenge the decision before the courts."
The Association for the Defense of Press Freedom in Iraq, has rejected the recent amendments to the committees on the draft law on freedom of expression and peaceful demonstration. The Assembly recently called on parliament to withdraw the law from the agenda and give it more time to reach a reasonable solution with MPs who reject the idea of ​​notification.
The Assembly pointed out that "the amendments included by most of the committees concerned did not succeed, despite their efforts, to amend Article VII, which gives the head of the administrative unit the authority to denounce the demonstration or assembly."
A member of the Culture Committee MP Sarwa Abdul Wahid, on Monday, the collection of signatures to postpone the vote on the law of freedom of expression, indicating that this came some of the status of the National Alliance additional penalties in the law.
"The committees concerned with legislating the law of organizing peaceful demonstration met yesterday with representatives of civil society organizations to amend the draft law in a way that serves this human right and was agreed on a certain formula," said Abdul Wahid, in a press statement seen by the (range)
The National Alliance held a meeting yesterday evening (Sunday), and amended some paragraphs of the law by adding additional punitive paragraphs " The Kurdish MP," We reject these actions and we have collected the signatures of 51 deputies in order to submit to the presidency of parliament to postpone the vote on the bill, "stressing that" the law "
A new article was added to the draft law in Chapter Four (General and Final Provisions), which gives the prime minister the right to public interest or national security" to prevent any peaceful meeting or demonstration, even if there is prior notice " . it has
also been added to another paragraph of Article T Stipulates that any person who has not submitted a written request to the governmental authorities to organize the demonstrations shall be punished by imprisonment for a term not less than 6 months and not exceeding one year. The new paragraph also set a fine of not less than 10 million dinars and less than 25 million dinars to demonstrate without written request. The draft also laid financial and physical penalties in other places related to violating the list of prohibitions accompanying the demonstrations.
"Among the sanctions that were added to the article on the penalty of imprisonment for one year and a fine of one million, she was brought to prison for three years and a financial penalty of not less than ten million and not more than 25 million dinars, Any public activity according to the requirements that he sees, "noting that" the law included notification of the parties concerned with the time of demonstration 72 hours ago. "
To this the leader of the Sadrist movement on the line of rejecters of the law of freedom of expression, considering that the freedom of opinion and expression guaranteed in the Constitution and the right of parliament and others to infringe it.
"Freedom of opinion and expression is guaranteed by the constitution and no parliament or anyone else has the right to infringe on it," Sadr said in response to a question by one of his followers about his position on the draft freedom of expression bill, which is being discussed by parliament. Sadr stressed that "parliamentarians do not vote on what the people refuse," adding that one of the most important achievements after the fall of the former regime "to give the Iraqi freedom to express his opinion." "All Iraqi liberals should not suppress the stifling voices that want to delay the wheel of reform," Sadr said.

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