BAGHDAD (Agencies)
Iraq's parliament passed a law on Saturday to ease restrictions on mostly Sunni Arab members of Saddam Hussein's Baath party returning to public life, as it considered changes to the look and symbolism of the country's flag.
Washington has been pressing Iraq's Shi'ite Islamist-led government to pass the law in an effort to draw the minority Sunni Arab community that held sway under Saddam closer into the political process.
The Accountability and Justice bill replaces the De-Baathification law, which Sunnis have long complained amounted to collective punishment against their sect.
The new law will allow thousands of former party members to apply for reinstatement in the civil service and military, while pensions will be given to a smaller group of more senior members still banned from public life.
The previous law set up a committee tasked with purging senior Baath Party members from government and tightly restricted the employment of junior party members.
Thousands of Iraqis, most of them Sunnis, were fired from government jobs after Saddam was toppled in the U.S.-led invasion in 2003, fuelling a long-running insurgency against Iraq's new Shiite rulers and U.S. forces.
While support for the insurgency has waned following a rebellion by Sunni tribes against Sunni Islamist al Qaeda, there is still a deep sectarian divide between Sunnis and Shiites. |
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New flag Saddam Hussein's handwritten praise to God will be dropped from the Iraqi flag and the symbolism behind its three green stars will be changed, according to a bill presented to parliament on Saturday.
The Iraqi flag still bears the ousted dictator's handwritten Allahu Akhbar" (God is Great) while the three stars officially symbolize unity, freedom and socialism -- the slogan of Saddam's Baath party.
Under the new flag law, given its first reading by parliament on Saturday, the praise to God will be printed -- in yellow -- in the Kufi form of Arabic script while the stars will now represent peace, tolerance and justice.
The new law would apply for a year, after which it will be looked at again.
Saddam Hussein was executed on Dec. 30, 2006 for crimes against humanity. |
