19/3/2022
The Press Freedom Advocacy Association in Iraq held its second consultative session to discuss the proposed amendments on the Media and Communications Commission bill in the presence of a group of PMs, their representatives, the Iraqi Media Network, journalists and jurists.
Dr. Mohamed Nouri, a member of the Imtidad Movement, pledged that both Imtidad and Aljeel Aljadid alliance adopt the bill on the amendments affecting the status of the country’s press and journalists’ situation, and to participate in the legal discussions within the legal parliamentary committees to satisfy the direct beneficiaries of these laws.
The session concluded with a number of recommendations, most notably the review of a number of legal articles amended by the Association, sending them to independent parliamentary blocs, and identifying cases of legal irregularities of the Media and Communications Commission that were mentioned in the report of the Association in 2021; 128 closure decisions. The recommendations aimed to include punitive provisions against the commission for such violations. Work to revive the Information and Publishing Court by enacting a law in the House of Representatives, and considering the legal overlap between three closely related laws (communication and informatics – Ministry of Communications – Media and Communications Commission) all which have underwent the first reading in the last parliamentary session.