Le­gal Af­fairs Min­is­ter Sad­dam Ho­sein yes­ter­day de­clined to say what penal­ties await peo­ple who set off fire­works with­out a per­mit or out­side the re­strict­ed hours out­lined in leg­is­la­tion ex­pect­ed be­fore Par­lia­ment to­day. He in­stead urged the pub­lic to wait for the de­tails to be re­vealed dur­ing the de­bate, which should com­mence af­ter 1.30 pm when Par­lia­ment con­venes.

Un­der the pro­posed law, per­mits would be re­quired for all fire­works use ex­cept on pub­lic hol­i­days and New Year’s Eve. Even then, the win­dow would be nar­row – 8 pm to 9 pm on hol­i­days and 11.30 pm to 12.30 am on New Year’s Eve.

Fire­works would al­so be pro­hib­it­ed in sev­er­al sen­si­tive zones, in­clud­ing with­in a half-mile ra­dius of hos­pi­tals, air­ports, zoos, reg­is­tered an­i­mal shel­ters, live­stock farms, for­est re­serves and na­tion­al parks.