The new Iraqi media law: who controls the controllers?

In April 2007 Dr Siyamend Othman, CEO of the Communications and Media Commission of Iraq (CMC) (1), presented his draft of for a comprehensive regulation of the country’s media and telecommunication, the “Iraqi Media and Telecommunications Law”, to the Iraqi parliament for evaluation so that it can then be presented for a first reading.

The draft outlines the competencies and rules for the distribution of licenses, the composition of the regulatory body, and punishments for violations of the regulations. The CMC itself will be renamed “Federal Media and Telecommunications Commission” and have “sole responsibility for the licensing and regulation of cable and wireless telecommunications services, broadcasting and transmission services, information services (the Internet) and other media services” in all of Iraq (Art. 52). The commission will fall under the supervision of Parliament. The law gives the CMC control over both broadcast media and telecommunications. Print media are initially subsumed under “media” but then throughout the law only broadcast media and telecommunications are addressed.

A “Media Advisory Committee”, to be established by the commission, will be tasked to “draw up, update and circulate for consultation to the providers of broadcasting and transmission services, a written code of broadcasting conduct, to include standards governing the planning of the broadcasting and transmission program, in accordance with the principles of quality, accuracy, public decency, fairness, impartiality, diversity of opinion, right of reply, and avoidance of incitement to hatred and violence.” (Art. 79/2)

The question here, however, will be how to define and enforce “impartiality” and “diversity of opinion” in a country where all media is partisan, most are connected to a political party, and none have - so far - bothered to obtain a license.

Niqash.org has asked international experts for their opinion on the current draft. Some called the draft law “encouraging” but criticized that it is, overall, often unclearly phrased and thus needs a lot of clarification of details. It often uses “telecommunications” and “media” seemingly interchangeably, yet giving the CMC authority over print media as well without, however, clarifying just what kind of authority that is. It should be made clear, for example, that print media do not require any licenses.

Some experts welcome that the law establishes a licensing institution that is independent from the government, but others question the “independence” of an institution whose board members are appointed by the prime minister.

The criteria, according to which licenses and frequencies are to be given (and refused), are not provided at all, although the regulators’ agenda is crucial in a wild media landscape were the regulator himself has, so far, been weak and ignored by media outlets which are freely mushrooming far away from what is in general understood a to be independent and non-partisan. Yet the legal framework for journalistic work is not described at all. The law also prescribes disproportionately high penalties for minor infractions, yet there is no provision for due process.

Iraqi experts point out that “telecommunications” is not “media” and that the former should be entirely regulated by the Ministry of Telecommunication, and not the CMC. They allege that the CMC wants to keep telecommunication under its control because it is a very lucrative sector of the economy. This is particularly important in view of the fact that the Iraqi mobile phone licenses are up for renewal again soon, and thus the CMC itself has not reason to give up this particular source of income.

Thus, while obviously nobody is against a media regulation law, the experts see this draft to be in dire need of revision.

Currently, there are two working groups - the Culture and Media Commission of the parliament under leadership of Mufid al-Jaza’iri and one civil society group consisting of all stake-holders (journalists, publishers, media activists, lawmakers) and supported by the well-known NGO “Article 19” (2) - collaborating on a general media law that would, for example, also regulate freedom of expression. It will be interesting to see how much power and leeway will be given to the CMC in their draft, which will be presented to parliament in the fall. The CMC has been advised by Albany Associates (3), an international consulting company led by Simon Haselock , the former CPA media commissioner in Iraq who was instrumental in the original set-up of the post-War Iraqi media landscape.

Link:
(1) http://www.cmc.iq
(2) http://www.article19.org
(3) http://www.albanyassociates.com

To read the full text of the law, please click here.

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