US embassy cable - 05BAGHDAD4425

C O N F I D E N T I A L BAGHDAD 004425 
 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 10/27/2015 
TAGS: PGOV, PHUM, KDEM, IZ 
SUBJECT: (C) KURDISH TNA MEMBER'S MOSQUE SPEECHES SILENCED 
 
Classified By: Political Counselor Robert S. 
Ford for Reasons 1.4 (b) and (d). 
 
1.  Summary.  According to TNA member Ahmed Wahab 
Majeed, the Kurdish Ministry of Awqaf and Religious 
Affairs informed him that he could no longer be an 
imam in his mosque in Irbil.  The Ministry's decision 
is purportedly based on Article 28(A) that states that 
TNA members "may not be appointed to any other 
position in or out of government."  Ahmed Wahab is a 
critic of government corruption countrywide, so this 
is not the first time that he has run afoul of the 
authorities with his mosque speeches.  However, the 
KRG seems to have found a legal provision in the TAL 
that requires him to withdraw from his imam position. 
End Summary 
 
2.  (C) TNA and Constitutional Committee member Ahmed 
Wahab Majeed told Poloff on October 19 that the 
Kurdish Ministry of Awqaf and Religious Affairs, under 
the Kurdish Regional Government (KRG), sent him a 
letter on August 17 informing him that he can no 
longer be an imam in his mosque in Irbil.  The letter 
reportedly tells him that, as an Assembly member, he 
cannot have more than one government position. 
 
3.  (U) Article 28(A) of the TAL states, "Members of 
the National Assembly ... may not be appointed to any 
other position in or out of government."  In Iraq, the 
Ministry of Awqaf appoints the imams of many (but not 
all) mosques and pays their salaries.  The Kurdish 
Ministry of Awqaf maintains a similar role in the 
Kurdish region. 
 
4.  (C) Ahmed Wahab said he has been talking in 
general terms about government corruption countrywide 
in his mosque speeches.  He said that as a Muslim, he 
must speak out on these issues. 
 
5.  (C) Ahmed Wahab is a member of the Kurdistan 
Islamic Union party, which is part of the Kurdish 
Alliance and which has six seats in the TNA and nine 
in the Kurdistan National Assembly (KNA), the Kurdish 
regional parliament.  According to him, the Kurdish 
Ministry of Awqaf issued a similar letter to Kurdistan 
Islamic Union Party member Anwar Muhammad Ghafur, an 
imam in Irbil who is also a member of the KNA. 
 
6.  (C) According to Ahmed Wahab, this is the third 
such time that he has been ordered to be silent in the 
mosque: first under Saddam Hussein, when he was an 
imam at a mosque in Baghdad in the 1980s, and second 
from 1999 until 2003, when he was an imam in Irbil. 
 
7.  (C) Comment.  We know of at least one other 
practicing mosque imam in the TNA - Shia cleric Jalal 
ad-Din as-Sagheer from the popular Baratha mosque in 
north Baghdad.  We know of no effort to compel him to 
resign his position at the Baratha mosque.  The KRG's 
tougher line stance, by contrast, may result from its 
trying to separate religion and state more clearly; 
the Kurdish authorities are wary of Islamist influence 
in government.  It may also result from a KRG desire 
to stifle a critic of government corruption.  Ahmed 
Wahab stressed to us that he attacks corruption 
nationally, not just in Kurdistan.  The KRG may feel 
that it cannot order him directly not to preach, as it 
did in 1999.  Instead, the KRG seems to have found a 
legal provision in the TAL that appears to require 
that Wahab not continue to hold his imam position. 
Satterfield