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| Iraq |
| Iraq speaker slams govt |
| 2012-01-03 |
| BAGHDAD: Iraq's Parliament speaker warned Monday that human rights violations are putting the country's fragile democracy at risk, the latest pronouncement in a rapidly developing sectarian spat that threatens to destabilize the country after US troops pulled out. The televised comments by Osama Al-Nujaifi, one of the country's top Sunni officials, are the latest salvo in a growing political crisis that was sparked when Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki's government issued an arrest warrant for the country's top Sunni politician last month. Al-Maliki, a Shiite, controls the ministries that oversee Iraq's police and military. Some of Iraq's minority Sunnis, who fear being marginalized, accuse the prime minister of using the security forces to try to consolidate power. "The armed forces should not be a tool to repress people and the armed forces should not interfere in political matters," Nujaifi said. "Human rights will not become a reality in a situation where the political process is snarled ... Losing these rights will destroy democracy." Nujaifi also cautioned against a politicized security force, amid accusations that units have surrounded the homes of senior Sunni politicians inside Baghdad's heavily fortified Green Zone. "The priority of the army should not change from training and raising its combat level to seeking political power and supporting parties," Nujaifi said. The Parliament speaker, a member of the Sunni-backed Iraqiya bloc, Al-Maliki's main political rivals, spoke a day before Parliament was scheduled to hold its first session of the new year. Iraqiya suspended its participation in Parliament last month to protest Al-Maliki's control of key posts, particularly those overseeing security forces. |
| Posted by:Steve White |