Saddam’s successors use Saddam’s laws to close down trade unions

The news from Iraq this week has not been good. After weeks of popular protest against power cuts which led in some cases to deaths and injuries at the hands of the police, Oil Minister Hussain al-Shahristani was given the Electricity Ministry too, and on 21 July he issued an order to raid, seize property from and close down the  offices of electricity unions, on the basis that Iraqi law still bans unions in the public sector – a law dating from the Saddam era, and still on the statute books. For more information please click here: http://blogs.amnesty.org.uk/blogs_entry.asp?eid=6826