By Saffiyah Khalique
Your commercial awareness dose
Human Rights Watch revealed that Iraqi lawmakers are in the process of creating new information technology laws that would restrict freedom of speech in the country, which poses a severe threat to journalists and activists working in the country. The country has a history of repressive laws against freedom of speech and harassment of journalists. According to Reporters Without Borders’ Index on Press Freedom Iraq ranks 162 out of 180 countries. This has increased in threat in the last year because of a wave of protests which put journalists at risk for covering them. Murders of journalists in the country continue to go unpunished due to lack of proper investigation if any.
Free speech has been under attack in the country in the recent months, with reporters being arrested for covering protests in the country against high unemployment levels. Int terms of the law, on November 23rd, 2020, lawmakers drafted a bill that includes provisions that will allow Iraqi authorities to harshly punish expression they view as a threat to governmental, social or religious interests.
Belkis Wille, a senior crisis and conflict researcher at Human Rights Watch says: “This law would give Iraqi authorities yet another tool to suppress dissent over the main medium that journalists, activists, and the general public rely on for information and open debate.”
This is not the first law to restrict online posts. In 2011, the government proposed an “Information Technology Crimes Bill.” The law did not pass at the time, but this law has been brought up to parliament again last year. The worrying aspect of this bill is that it contains several articles that criminalise the use of computers in such vague and broad terms with lack of regulation and specific criteria as to what counts as a crime. These also articles conflict with international law and the Iraqi constitution, as well as controlling the right to freedom of expression.
The penalties for breaking the law include life in prison and fines of up to USD$42,000 for anyone who intentionally uses a computer device and the internet to undermine “the independence, unity, or safety of the country, or its supreme economic, political, military, or security interests,” or “participating, negotiating, promoting, contracting with, or dealing with a hostile entity in any way with the purpose of disrupting security and public order or endangering the country.”
The most worrying of the articles is Article 21, which hands out a minimum one-year prison sentence for “any person who encroaches on any religious, moral, family or social values or the sanctity of private life using an information network or computer devices in any shape,” with a further article extending this to photographs and film. This is concerning for the regular citizens right to free access and usage of the internet and again leads to self-censorship in fears of prison time.
The terminology here is incredibly worrying for the freedom of expression of Iraqi journalists and activists because it prevents the criticism of the government in all aspects from economy to its politics and military. This would control what publications can produce encouraging self-censorship and what the individual can post on the internet affecting blogs, which are usually the tools of online activists, thus impacting information about human rights abuses being told and anything against the narrative of the government.
Free speech and digital rights advocates must be vocal about this to ensure the right to freedom of expression and internet usage in Iraq in the upcoming months and the Iraqi governments move need to be monitored to make sure laws like these do not become law.
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