The battle over civil liberties has erupted again, after a draft law written under the government of former Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki on freedom of expression, assembly and peaceful protest was returned to parliament in October. This draft law was presented to the previous parliament in October 2012, but it did not see the light of day because civil rights organizations in Iraq — including human rights organizations, the Journalistic Freedoms Observatory (JFO) and the Iraqi Association for the Defense of Culture — resisted the law and succeed in obstructing it and preventing its ratification.
Human Rights Watch (HRW) also expressed its opposition to the draft at the time. In an article published on its website, the organization called on the Iraqi government to "revise its draft law on freedom of expression and assembly to remove provisions that restrict those freedoms."
