Iraq’s parliament on Tuesday passed an amended bill that sparked outrage over fears it could roll back women’s rights and allow early marriage.
The parliament said on its website that it had adopted a “proposal to amend the Personal Status Law” as well as a “second amendment to the general amnesty law”.
1959 Amendments to the Personal Status Law allow people to choose between religious or civil rules for family matters such as marriage, inheritance, divorce, and child custody.
The first version of the amendments faced opposition from feminists and civil society groups over fears that it would lower the minimum age of marriage for Muslim girls to nine.
But an amended version reinstates sections of the old law that set the marriage age at 18 – or 15, with the consent of legal guardians and a judge, MP Mohammed Anouz told AFP.
Under the new amendment, couples can opt for Shia Muslim or Sunni Muslim rules, and clerics and lawyers will have four months to establish community-specific rules.
In October, Amnesty International warned that the amendments could strip women and girls of their protections regarding divorce and inheritance.
The parliament also passed an amnesty law that created disagreements between political factions. The law allows retrials for people convicted of many crimes.
The most influential Sunni faction, the Taqadom Party, welcomed the adoption of the amnesty law.
Iraq’s Sunni community has been a key supporter of reconsidering the law, and has pushed for it to include a full review of all convictions on terrorism charges.
According to Anouz, the law excludes convictions for “terrorist crimes” that resulted in the death or “permanent disability” of a person, or that involved fighting Iraqi security forces or “subversion of institutions.”
But it allows the judiciary to reopen investigations and start new trials for people who say they confessed “under torture” or found them guilty based on “information provided by a secret informant.” It was ordained, Anouz explained.
In recent years, Iraqi courts have ordered hundreds of executions in terrorism cases, proceedings that rights groups say often lack due process or in which suspect confessions obtained through torture are considered admissible. Is.
In a country plagued by endemic corruption, those accused of embezzling public funds could also benefit from the amnesty law if they repay the stolen money, Anuj said.
The previous amnesty in 2016 reportedly included 150,000 people.
The new amnesty law excludes rape, incest and human trafficking.
The laws passed on Tuesday, each supported by the Shia, Sunni and Kurdish communities, were adopted in a package in which political parties agreed to avoid any obstruction.
But many lawmakers condemned irregularities in the voting process, with some threatening to go to court to invalidate Tuesday’s session.
MP Nour Nafeh claimed that the parliament passed the personal status law and amnesty “without a vote”.
“MPs did not raise their hands”, he said on Twitter, adding that some MPs had left the room in response to the “farce”.
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