{"id":27845,"date":"2019-01-03T00:24:09","date_gmt":"2019-01-03T00:24:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=27845"},"modified":"2019-01-03T00:24:09","modified_gmt":"2019-01-03T00:24:09","slug":"iraqi-mps-celebratory-gunfire-video-sparks-anger","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=27845","title":{"rendered":"Iraqi MP\u2019s \u2018celebratory gunfire\u2019 video sparks anger"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

\nBAGHDAD: A video of an Iraqi member of parliament firing\u00a0into the air has sparked anger after stray bullets from celebratory New Year gunfire killed a teenage girl.<\/p>\n

\nA further 170 people were either injured by guns\u00a0or suffered burns from fireworks on New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day in the Iraqi capital, medical and police sources told Arab News.<\/p>\n

\nPublic anger over the number of people hurt was already high when a video circulated on social media late on Tuesday evening, showing Wihdah Al-Jumaili, a Sunni MP sitting in her car next to the driver and firing several shots into the air from a Beretta handgun.<\/p>\n

\nJumaili said she was celebrating the marriage of a friend\u2019s son when the shots were fired. She wrote on Facebook that she shot in the air as \u201cpart of tribal practices adopted by tribes in Ramadi,\u201d the capital of the Sunni-dominated Anbar province.\u00a0But the video shows her car by the\u00a0side of a highway in Baghdad\u2019s Dorra district.<\/p>\n

\nShooting in the air is considered an offense under Iraqi law, and punishments range from between one and three years in prison, lawyers told Arab News.<\/p>\n

\nThousands of Iraqi Facebook and Twitter users expressed their anger at Jumaili, and demanded she be stripped of her MP\u2019s immunity to face prosecution.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\nMany said her actions encouraged others to break the law and use personal weapons irresponsibly.<\/p>\n

\nSeveral lawyers filed a written request on Wednesday to Iraq\u2019s attorney general, urging him to launch a prosecution.<\/p>\n

\nEvery year, dozens of people are injured or even killed by celebratory gunfire on New Year or during other festivities, or events like weddings.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\nHajer Abbas, 14, suffered a head injury from a stray bullet in the Iraqi capital on New Year\u2019s Eve and died from the wound on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

\nJumaili\u2019s video is the latest in a series of scandals affecting politicians who Iraqis see as behaving as if they were above the law.<\/p>\n

\nLeaked intelligence information this week revealed the brother of the new education minister, Shaimaa Al-Hayali had acted as a leader within Daesh during the extremist\u2019s occupation of Mosul.<\/p>\n

\nJumaili is a member of the Iranian backed Al-Binna\u2019a parliamentary coalition, which is led by Hadi Al-Amiri, commander of the powerful armed Badr Organization.<\/p>\n

\nPolitical opponents were quick to link her political loyalties to the video.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cThis (Jumaili) lawmaker has proved that she belongs to Al-Binna\u2019a bloc, which means the core of action and weapons,\u201d Muqith Dagher, an Iraqi researcher tweeted late on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cOf course, no one will hold them accountable.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BAGHDAD: A video of an Iraqi member of parliament firing\u00a0into the air has sparked anger after stray bullets from celebratory New Year gunfire killed a teenage girl. A further 170 people were either injured by guns\u00a0or suffered burns from fireworks on New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day in the Iraqi capital, medical and police…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":27846,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27845","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle_east_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27845","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=27845"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27845\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/27846"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=27845"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=27845"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=27845"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}