IRAQ: GOVERNMENT FORMALLY SET TO ACCEPT DRAFT CONSTITUTION. PRO CONSTITUTION DEMONSTRATIONS.

Record ID: 648552

  • Title: IRAQ: GOVERNMENT FORMALLY SET TO ACCEPT DRAFT CONSTITUTION. PRO CONSTITUTION DEMONSTRATIONS.
  • Date: 25th August 2005
  • Summary: (W3) KERBALA, IRAQ (AUGUST 25, 2005) (REUTERS) 1. VARIOUS: DEMONSTRATORS WAVING THE IRAQI FLAG. 0.10 2. WS: PEOPLE, INCLUDING SHI'ITE CLERICS, MARCHING IN KERBALA STREET IN SUPPORT OF THE NEW CONSTITUTION. 0.18 3. VARIOUS: BANNER READING "YES! YES TO CONSTITUTION. CONGRATULATIONS FOR THE IRAQI PEOPLE ON THE BIRTH OF THE CONSTITUTION" 0.24 (EU) BAGHDAD, IRAQ (AUGUST 25, 2005) (POOL) 4. SCU: (SOUNDBITE) (English) LAITH KUBBA, IRAQI GOVERNMENT SPOKESMAN, SAYING: "By the end of the day, we should have a completed version of the draft, so that's what will happen today. As far as I know there have been slight amendments to the articles that were left open, some agreement has been reached, again it will not please everybody, but again there is an amendment to those three articles and by the end of the day it will be filed and it will be formal and we will have a draft constitution. The Assembly then will rubber-stamp it, this will take place either today or on Sunday, I am not really sure when it will be rubber-stamped, but at least by the end of the day we will have the completed version of the draft." 1.15 (EU) BAGHDAD, IRAQ (AUGUST 25, 2005) (REUTERS) 5. WS: CAMERAMEN. 1.21 6. SCU: (SOUNDBITE) (Arabic) HUSSEIN AL-FALAHI, A SUNNI ON THE DRAFTING PANEL, SAYING: "There is a legal position that the National Assembly has violated and we consider constitution now dissolved because the National Assembly did not pay attention to the Transitional Administrative Law when it issue a new law or a decision, with regard to this act." 1.48 (W3) KERBALA, IRAQ (AUGUST 25, 2005) (REUTERS) 7. MV: MAN SHOUTING THROUGH LOUDSPEAKER " YES ! YES ! TO CONSTITUTION" 1.51 8. HAS: DEMONSTRATORS PUNCHING FISTS INTO THE AIR AND CHANTING "A CROWN ON THE HEAD, YOU SAYYID ALI (AL-SISTANI)" 1.58 9. MV: VEILED WOMEN TAKING PART IN THE DEMONSTRATION. 2.03 10. SCU: (SOUNDBITE) (Arabic), GOVERNOR OF KERBALA, SAYING: "The atmosphere is of a real victory that the Iraqi people are currently living. It reflects harmony and consensus among all the Iraqi spectrums on what has been accomplished during the final touches of drafting the Iraqi constitution." 2.26 (EU) BAGHDAD, IRAQ (AUGUST 25, 2005) (REUTERS) 11. WS: OF TRAFFIC IN BAGHDAD STREETS. (2 SHOTS) 2.35 12. SCU: ABBAS AL-SHAMARI, IRAQI CITIZEN, SPEAKING TO JOURNALIST. 2.41 13. CU: (SOUNDBITE) (Arabic) ABBASS AL-SHAMARI, IRAQI CITIZEN, SAYING: "The postponement is not in the interest of the Iraqi people. The constitution should be approved by the National Assembly and any delay is not in our interests. Let them approve the constitution to guarantee the Iraqi people rights." 2.59 14. CU: (SOUNDBITE) (Arabic) UNIDENTIFIED IRAQI CITIZEN SAYING: "Is it in the constitution? Are we going to die if we do not have a constitution. It has been postponed many times for the sake of others. Let them leave the constitution and fix electricity and water (networks). Now all these things, not only the constitution. The constitution is ready and then what?" 3.16 (W3) DIWANIYA, SOUTH OF BAGHDAD (AUGUST 25, 2005) (REUTERS) 15. WS: STREET IN DIWANIYA CITY. 3.24 16. VARIOUS: MILITIAMEN OF THE MEHDI ARMY, LOYAL TO SHI'ITE CLERIC MOQTADA AL-SADR, TAKING POSITION ON ROOFTOP OF A BUILDING IN CENTRE OF CITY. (2 SHOTS) 3.43 17. VARIOUS: MORE OF ARMED MILITIAMEN ON ROOFTOP OF BUILDING. (3 SHOTS) 4.05 18. VARIOUS: ARMED SADR'S SUPPORTERS DEPLOYED TO BUILDING. 4.28 19. MV: A WHITE-TURBANED CLERIC HOLDING GUN. 4.43 Initials Script is copyright Reuters Limited. All rights reserved
  • Embargoed: 9th September 2005 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: KERBALA AND BAGHDAD AND DIWANIYA, IRAQ
  • Country: Iraq
  • Reuters ID: LVA7IH212PQUBJGAUFSDKBYZ4BB6
  • Story Text: Iraq is set formally to adopt its constitution draft, dividing religious factions with yet more violence.



    The Iraqi government said a final draft of a constitution would be
    adopted by parliament on Thursday (August 25) despite its rejection by
    minority Sunni Arabs and clashes between rival factions among the Shi'ite
    majority.

    "By the end of the day we will have a final version of the
    draft," government spokesman Laith Kubba told a news conference.

    "It will be approved. The National Assembly will then rubber stamp
    it," he added, saying that the government was prepared to take the risk
    of it being rejected at an October referendum, a result that would usher
    another year of provisional rule.

    Kubba said the provisions of the interim constitution that parliament
    had to draft the new constitution by a deadline in August had been met and
    there was no need for parliament to vote.

    The Shiite-Kurdish draft of the constitution would fundamentally
    transform Iraq from the highly centralised state as it was under Saddam
    Hussein, into a loose federation of Kurds, Shiites and Sunni Arabs.

    Sunnis, who dominated Iraqi society under Saddam, oppose that
    decentralisation, fearing it would cut them out of the country's oil wealth
    and lead to the break-up of Iraq, leaving them powerless. They are now
    mobilising to secure a blocking two-thirds "No" vote and also
    threatened to mount a legal challenge to the way the draft was accepted.

    "There is a legal position that the National Assembly has violated
    and we consider constitution now dissolved because the National Assembly did
    not pay attention to the Transitional Administrative Law when it issue a new
    law or a decision, with regard to this act," said Hussein al-Falahi, a
    Sunni on the drafting panel.

    On the streets of Kerbala though, more than one thousand Shi'ites
    marched on the streets of the Iraqi holy city of Kerbala in a show of support
    for the new constitution.

    Chanting "Yes! Yes to the constitution," the demonstrators
    carried banners and waved Iraqi flags.

    The demonstrators also cheered support for Iraq's highest religious
    authority, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani. Marching alongside the
    demonstrators, the governor of Kerbala called the drafting of the constitution
    a "real victory."
    Iraqi lawmakers had said they would allow three more days for a review
    of the document in order to try bring Sunnis opposed to the deal on board.

    Many Iraqi citizens were angry with the postponement.

    "The postponement is not in the interest of the Iraqi people. The
    constitution should be approved by the National Assembly and any delay is not
    in our interests. Let them approve the constitution to guarantee the Iraqi
    people rights," said Abbass Al-Shamari.

    It's not just Sunnis though who are opposed to the constitution,
    radical Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr this week mobilised thousands of his
    supporters for a protest against the proceedings. Violence flared in Baghdad,
    Najaf and Basra between Sadr's Mehdi Army militia and rival supporters of the
    Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), one of the main
    Shi'ite Islamist parties in the coalition government.

    At Sadr's Diwaniya offices, in the south of Baghdad, armed Shia clerics
    were on guard, ready for more violence.

    Sadr, a strident nationalist whose followers deride rival Shi'ite
    Islamist leaders for their time in exile in Iran, has joined Sunni leaders in
    denouncing the draft constitution as a recipe for the break-up of the state.

    A session of the Shi'ite- and Kurdish-dominated assembly will take place
    on Sunday, according to government spokesman Kubba, who said it could be the
    moment for a symbolic "rubber stamp" vote to send the draft to a
    plebiscite by Oct. 15.



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