“The number of inmates released from all departments of the correctional directorates in Baghdad and other provinces during the month of July was 767, comprising 78 women and 689 men,” read an announcement from the Iraqi government's media and communications department, reported by state media (INA).
The department added that “the Reform Directorate continuously monitors the release process after completing all legal procedures, ensuring that its work is carried out in the best possible manner.”
The Iraqi parliament has completed the first reading of a bill proposing an amendment to the 2016 General Amnesty Law, a key demand by Sunni blocs when they joined the ruling State Administration Coalition with the Shiite Coordination Framework and Kurdish blocs to form the current Iraqi cabinet.
Sunni leaders argue that thousands from their community have been unjustly imprisoned in Shiite-dominated Iraq since 2003 due to alleged links to terrorist groups. The proposed amendment seeks to redefine affiliation with terrorism, specifying it as “anyone who worked in terrorist organizations, recruited members for them, committed criminal acts, helped in any way to carry out a terrorist act, or whose name was found in the records of a terrorist organization.”
The proposed changes to the General Amnesty Law come amid an alarming increase in executions in Iraqi prisons. Rights watchdog Amnesty International has repeatedly criticized Iraqi authorities this year over multiple executions, including instances where more than ten prisoners were executed in one day.
More than 8,000 prisoners are purportedly on death row in Iraq, with at least 150 at imminent risk of execution, according to Amnesty International.
