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Iraqi minorities get local council seats
 The three-member presidency council of Iraq approves a controversial resolution that will set aside six local council seats for minorities. "In order to fix the rights of the minority seats in the future, the presidency council decided to approve the decision voted on before by the parliament," said Naseer al-Ani, chief of staff for the council. The Iraqi constitution has foreseen a three-member Presidency Council, consisting of the President of the Republic and the two of his vice presidents. The decision comes after the county's Christians complained that controversial legislation passed in September by the Iraqi parliament, excludes guarantees of representation for minority groups at the local council level. As a result of the opposition, that had also caused unrest and heavy exodus in cities like Mosul, earlier this month, parliament voted on Monday in favor of a quota to give three seats to Iraq's Christians and three to other religious minorities, the Yazidis, Sabeans and the Shabaks. The three-member presidency council had to approve the measure for it to come into effect. The new quota is still controversial among Christian politicians who had hoped to receive at least six local council seats for their community. Iraq with a population of an estimated 29m has around 400,000 Christians, which is half the number of Christians living in Iraq before the US invasion of the country in 2003. Posted by: Fred 2008-11-09 |
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