Across Baghdad and several Iraqi provinces, women’s rights groups and civil society organisations have taken to the streets in a substantial display of dissent against the Iraqi Parliament’s move to amend the country’s Personal Status Law, which critics say threatens constitutional rights for women and risks deepening societal divisions along sectarian lines. At the heart of the unrest is the first reading of a bill on 4 August, which seeks to revise the Personal Status Law No. 188 of 1959. The proposed amendments are feared to enhance the power of religious authorities over civil courts, pote…