The parliament passed a law giving provincial elections the go ahead, but scrapped a clause guaranteeing seats for minority sects.
A new decision by the Iraqi parliament leaves Iraqi minorities with no representation in the country's provincial councils as well as the legislature.
By an overwhelming majority, the parliament early this week revoked paragraph 50 from the constitution, under which Iraqi minorities were assigned a set of seats in legislative and municipal councils.
The revocation has sparked mass demonstrations in areas where these minorities live, particularly in the northern Province of Nineveh, of which Mosul is the capital.
Not only non-Muslim minorities are affected. The Shebeks, who are Muslim Shiites, have lost this privilege as well as the Yazidis who still pursue their secretive and traditional faith.
The decision has been a blow to the minorities who make up at least 10 per cent of the Iraqi population.
Neglected and persecuted under former leader Saddam Hussein, they hoped the new U.S.-occupied Iraq would bring good news.
On the contrary. They have borne the brunt of the upsurge in violence and insecurity that has become a characteristic of post-Saddam Iraq.
With paragraph 50 of the constitution revoked, these minorities will have no means left to air their voice.
Christians, Yazidis, and Sabeans have almost lost the religious freedom they enjoyed under Saddam Hussein in most parts of the country.
Today, these minorities make up a disproportionately high percentage of Iraqi refugees fleeing their country.
It is almost impossible for the Yazidis for example to live outside their traditional areas. And even there they are target of attacks and pressure by both Arabs and Kurds.
Certain cities like Mosul, which traditionally used to be centers of Christianity in the country, are being emptied of their Christian population.
Cleaning up of Jewish cemetery in Basra
Municipal authorities in the southern city of Basra have mounted a campaign to clean up the Jewish cemetery there.
The cemetery is seen as one of Basra’s ‘cultural landmarks’ and the authorities want to keep it clean and tidy, said Ahmad al-Yasseri who heads the cleaning-up campaign.
There are no Jews left in the city which used to house a sizeable Jewish community of tens of thousands before the creation of Israel in 1948.
They were the finest goldsmiths and the most adventurous traders of Basra, known as the Venice of the Middle East.
The lived in one of the city’s smartest quarters with spacious villas adorned with palm trees and oranges.
Yasseri said in the tumultuous post-Saddam period, 62 houses were built on the cemetery grounds illegally.
“This cemetery is one of the cultural landmarks of Basra and we are determined to remove the illegal dwellings,” he said.
Militiamen attack returning refugees in Baaquba
Many refugees who ventured to return home following reports of relative quiet in the country were forced to flee once again.
The restive Province of Diyala of which Baaquba is the capital has seen most of the violence directed at returning refugees.
Azzaman correspondent in the city says factional militias are active in the city and their attacks have even forced the heavily armed pro-U.S. Sunni militiamen to flee.
Some semblance of normalcy had returned to Diyala when Sunni tribesmen joined U.S.-financed groups of Sunni militias known as Sahwa or Awakening.
But U.S. protection of these groups is waning as Washington intends to transfer their file to the Shiite-dominated government.
Our correspondent says there has been a marked deterioration in security in Diyala, a province northeast of Baghdad extending as far as the Iranian borders.
The agricultural province is mainly Arab (93%) with a very small Kurdish minority (7%). But the Kurds are reported to be in control of about 27% of the province’s area of 17,685 square kilometers.
Tensions between Arabs and the government on the one hand and Kurdish militias on the other have been rising recently. The Arabs dislike the increasing Kurdish presence in their areas.
But the Arabs themselves are divided along sectarian lines into Sunnis and Shiites.
A senior parliamentary Arab deputy harshly criticized the military campaigns by U.S. and Iraqi troops to subdue the province.
Mohammed al-Dayni said the military forays “have practically achieved nothing”.
He said most of those detained during these operations were innocent people while those fuelling and committing violence were at large.
USA’s criticism of Iraqi government is cynical
One is bewildered by U.S. insistence that the Iraqi government should spend more of its stashed oil revenues on reconstruction.
It is absurd and cynical to see U.S. criticism of the government getting harsher and harsher at a time the government itself cannot function and survive without U.S. protection.
No one can deny that without U.S. blessings the government would not continue for long.
If the U.S. is serious it should force the government to be as transparent as possible about its revenues, budget and expenditures and at the same time compel it to publicly declare its reconstruction plans.
Six years after the implosion of the country at the hand of the U.S. occupiers and their lackey governments, Iraqis still lack basic public amenities.
Iraqis are still waiting for the prosperity U.S. President George W. Bush promised them.
When will Iraqis have efficient public transport? When will they have functioning health services? When will they have running water and continuous power supply?
It is now rare to find two Iraqis possessing the same passport and it is so difficult for other countries to know which one is authentic. Issuing passports has turned into one of the biggest scandals in U.S.-occupied Iraq and a sign of how rampant corruption is in government ranks.
Iraqis have been told that their 2009 budget may hit $80 billion and they cannot understand why so many of them are unemployed.
And security remains the biggest problem. Lack of security has made it almost impossible for some ethnic or sectarian groups of the Iraqi society to move from one city to another.
The issue today seems to be revolving around the security accords the U.S. and the Iraqi government are negotiating and the hurdles preventing the sides from coming to an agreement.
Do they really need a third party to bring them together?
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