By: – BBC News

A new Iraqi flag – purged of references to the executed former leader Saddam Hussein – has been hoisted over government buildings in Baghdad.

Three stars representing the former ruling Baath party have been removed. Script said to be in Saddam Hussein’s handwriting was amended in 2004.

The changes were sought by Iraqi Kurds victimised under the former regime, and approved by parliament last month.

But some Iraqis have displayed the old flag in silent protest, reports say.

‘Past wiped clean’

The flag was hoisted over the Iraqi cabinet building, inside the heavily fortified Green Zone in central Baghdad, by Iraq’s Prime Minister Nouri Maliki.

Mr Maliki said the new flag would “wipe clean the past of crimes and human rights violations committed under the previous flag”, AFP news agency reported.

The new flag retains the three colours of the old one – red, white and black. But the stars that represented the ideology of the Baath party – unity, freedom and socialism – have been removed.

In 2004, a line of Arabic script reading “Allahu Akbar”, or “God is great”, supposedly written in Saddam Hussein’s writing, was changed to a different calligraphy.

Protests

The latest change came at the behest of Kurds – but not all Iraqis are impressed with the change.

“This is a disaster … I am using the old flag in my office and at home,” Falluja Mayor Rasheed told Reuters last month.

The news agency reported ordinary Iraqis – who say the flag has little to do with Saddam Hussein – had attached the old flag to their cars in protest.

Nevertheless, the change is only temporary, as a design for a new flag will be sought after one year.

The Kurds are demanding that yellow should be added to the new flag.

In 2004, Iraq’s then US-appointed governing council tried to introduce an entirely new blue, white and yellow flag, but it was withdrawn after protests including the objection that it too closely resembled the flag of Israel.