Coverage under the Political Prisoners Foundation Law No. 4 of 2006 as amended rests on three elements together: the person's status (prisoner, detainee, or Rafha detainee), the reason for the imprisonment or detention (political opposition as the text defines it), and the period in which it took place. If one element is missing, the strength of the other two does not make up for it.
The wider framework is on the page Political Prisoners Foundation and Martyrs Foundation.
Item 1 of Article 5, as worded by the First Amendment, limits the law to two periods:
Imprisonment or detention outside these periods is outside this law's scope, even where the motive was political. So the first practical question in any file is: which entry and release dates can be proved on paper?
Paragraph (d) of item 2 of Article 5 defines the political prisoner as a person held or imprisoned inside or outside Iraq under a court judgment because of opposition to the former regime in opinion, belief or political affiliation, or because of helping its opponents. The distinguishing element is the court judgment. The text also treats children and minors who were born in prison, or held with or because of their imprisoned relatives, as political prisoners.
Paragraph (e) defines the political detainee as a person arrested, held or detained inside or outside Iraq, or placed under house arrest, with no court judgment, on suspicion or accusation for one of the same political reasons. The same rule extends to minors and children detained with their parents or relatives.
The difference between a prisoner and a detainee is not only a matter of words. Article 17 sets different rights depending on status and length of detention, as explained in Political prisoner rights and entitlements.
Paragraph (f) defines the Rafha detainees as participants in the 1991 uprising who left Iraq for Saudi Arabia, their families who left with them, and those born inside the detention camps, according to internationally documented official records and data. The same paragraph also brings in the victims of Halabja who took refuge in Iran after the chemical attack. Rafha detainees' applications go to a separate special committee under Article 7, item 5, paragraph (c).
Under item 1 of Article 5, coverage extends to the foreign spouses and children of covered persons. An application is therefore not refused merely because a spouse or child does not hold Iraqi nationality, provided the original person is covered.
Paragraph (g) defines them: the spouse, first-degree relatives, and heirs according to the sharia inheritance deed (al-qassam al-shar'i). This definition matters when the covered person dies, because the salary passes to the family and is divided equally among them under paragraph (c) of item 5 of Article 22, as amended in 2025.
Item 1 of Article 6 excludes anyone who worked with the former regime in its repressive or party organs, or cooperated with it as a security source and was then imprisoned or detained because of internal or power-related score-settling, or worked with it during or after the imprisonment. Item 2 withdraws rights and entitlements from a covered person convicted under Anti-Terrorism Law No. 13 of 2005. Item 3 withdraws them from heirs in the cases it lists.
The Second Amendment added Article 22 bis: the political acts for which a covered person was imprisoned or detained are not criminal records that bar employment or other rights.
Item 15 of Article 19, added by Law No. 10 of 2025, brings political prisoners and detainees in Iraq's Kurdistan Region under the law where their imprisonment or detention falls within the two periods above, while barring more than one entitlement for the same harm.
A person imprisoned under a court judgment because of political opposition to the former regime during the two periods set in Article 5. A person held without a judgment is a "political detainee".
The definition does not set a minimum length of detention, but the length affects the type of right set by Article 17.
Yes. Both definitions refer to imprisonment or detention inside or outside Iraq.
Children born in prison or held with their imprisoned relatives are treated as political prisoners. Other children appear as "family" for the purpose of the salary passing on death and certain rights.
The office works out the status and the period from the papers before any application, because coverage is read from the conditions of the applicable statute and from the decision of the competent committee.
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