Judiciary orders prosecutions over sectarian language

BAGHDAD — Iraq’s Supreme Judicial Council has instructed investigative courts and prosecutors to pursue people using sectarian language in traditional and social media, the third measure against public speech in five days.

Specialised investigative courts and members of the public prosecution have been told to monitor sectarian terminology and expressions intended to provoke discord and to pursue offenders under existing law, the council said, without identifying any individual or statement or specifying which provisions would be used.

A security committee was formed on Wednesday to monitor online content for hate speech and material with ethnic, racial or sectarian themes, approved by Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi as commander-in-chief and drawn from the Interior Ministry, the National Intelligence Service, the National Security Service and other security bodies. The spokesperson for the commander-in-chief, Sabah al-Numan, separately accused media platforms backed by what he called suspicious capital of spreading fear among Iraqis, without naming any.

The judicial order followed a State Administration Coalition meeting on Saturday attended by the four presidencies and political leaders, which the council said called for rejecting sectarian rhetoric and punishing those who promote it.

Similar warnings have been issued before. The Coordination Framework warned in September last year that rising sectarian language in political statements could threaten civil peace, and the judicial council warned candidates a month earlier that divisive campaign rhetoric could carry legal consequences.