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The push for the changes comes mainly from powerful Shiite Muslim political factions backed by religious leaders who have increasingly campaigned against what they describe as the West imposing its cultural norms on Muslim-majority Iraq.
The proposed amendments would allow Iraqis to turn to religious courts on issues of family law, which currently are the sole domain of civil courts. That would let clerics rule according to their interpretation of Shariah, or Islamic law, as opposed to national laws.
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Many Iraqi women have reacted with horror, holding protests outside parliament and campaigning against the changes on social media. “Legislating a law that brings back the country 1,500 years is a shameful matter … and we will keep rejecting it until the last breath,” Heba al-Dabbouni, an activist among dozens at a protest in August, told The Associated Press.
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