Search Results for: Iraq parliament

Amendments to Iraq’s Personal Status Law that came into effect on February 17 fail to adequately protect women’s right to equality before the law and leave them vulnerable to abuse and exploitation, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said in a release on Monday. Various changes and retentions made by this amendment have been criticized. For instance, [...]

In this long read op-ed for JURIST by Shadi Sadr, a human rights lawyer and PhD candidate at Leiden University, Sadr discusses the Rojava Tribunal, a session of the Permanent People’s Tribunal, focusing on alleged international law violations by Turkey in Rojava, Syria. Held in a complex geopolitical context, the tribunal charges included aggression and [...]

A federal prosecutor in Germany on Monday charged an Iraqi couple with enslavement, torture, and war crimes for their alleged treatment of two young Yazidi girls. The suspects, identified as Twana H.S. and Asia R.A., were arrested in Bavaria in April and are accused of keeping the girls as slaves while they were members of [...]

The Hague District Court sentenced Dutch woman Hasna A to ten years for crimes including the enslavement of a Yazidi woman, marking a significant step in the pursuit of justice for Yazidi genocide survivors, though challenges remain as national courts like those in Germany, Sweden, and France use universal jurisdiction to address these crimes, highlighting [...]

In a significant move, the Swiss parliament has officially recognized the atrocities committed by the Islamic State (ISIS) against Iraq’s Yazidi community as constituting genocide. The motion, passed on Tuesday, condemns the systematic expulsion, rape and murder of Yazidis, and the destruction of their cultural sites. The majority of the Swiss National Council voted in [...]

Amnesty International highlighted the failure of successive Iraqi governments to ensure justice, truth and reparation for the lethal crackdown on the 2019 Tishreen protests, in a report published on Monday. Titled “We hold them responsible for the blood of our youth,” the report reveals ongoing neglect and impunity five years after nationwide demonstrations led to [...]

Human Rights Watch (HRW) on Friday decried an Iraqi draft law that would permit marriages of children as young as nine years old. The draft, an amendment to Iraq’s 1959 Personal Status Law, was officially brought before the Iraqi Parliament on August 4, 2023 by Ra’ad al-Maliki. It seeks to amend Article 7(1) of the [...]

This week marks the 10th anniversary of the Yazidi genocide. It has been ten years since over 10,000 Yazidis were brutally murdered. Ten years since more than 7,000 women and children were subjected to abduction, violence, and enslavement. Ten years since thousands have disappeared and over 2,600 are still missing without a trace. To this [...]

HRW urged the Iraqi government on Monday to repeal a new law that prohibits same-sex conduct and transgender expression as it violates basic human rights such as freedom of expression, equality and non-discrimination. The anti-LGBT law, as an amendment to existing the Iraqi “Law on Combatting Prostitution,” was passed on April 27, 2024. It criminalizes [...]

Finnish Prime Minister Petteri Orpo announced on Sunday plans to introduce a draft law introducing temporary measures to combat instrumentalized migration at the Finnish-Russian border, in an interview with Finnish media. The controversial law which potentially breaches international law commitments on asylum, will be proposed later this week. The draft law was initially proposed earlier [...]