In the Ramadan series airing on private channel UTV, revered tribal leaders in southern Iraq are portrayed as backward tyrants, full of power and obsessed with women.
The Iraqi media authority on Sunday (March 26th) ordered a halt to the airing of a television series produced for Ramadan, which portrays fictional tribal chiefs in southern Iraq as lustful despots. In Iraq, tribal culture deeply permeates daily life, especially in the southern regions.
The tribal chief is revered and his opinion sought in disputes revolving, for example, around the cadastre. The weight of the tribes is such that their members very often prefer to trust the judgment of their sheikh rather than that of the state courts.
backward tyrants
However, in Al-Kasser (the predator, in Arabic) broadcast by the private channel UTV, the tribal chiefs and sheikhs portrayed give a poor image of these pillars of Iraqi society: they appear as backward tyrants, imbued with their power and obsessed with women.
Series “is an offense to southern societies” of the country, got carried away the deputy Moustafa Sanad, who belongs to the Coordination Framework, an alloy of pro-Iran parties from which Prime Minister Mohamed Chia al-Soudani comes. In a statement released Friday, March 24, the elected official asked for the series to be stopped, because it “harms the reputation of our tribes”. And he won.
Freedom of expression challenged
After just three episodes, UTV, owned by Sunni Baron Khamis al-Khanjar’s son, was ordered to stop broadcasting by the Communications and Media Commission (CMC) on Sunday March 26. In a statement, the CMC said it wanted to continue its efforts to stop anyone seeking “to undermine social stability”, without naming the series.
Mohammed al-Azzaoui, head of public relations for UTV, said it stopped broadcasting on Sunday. With AFP, he justified himself by ensuring that he had received “the approval of the Artists’ Union” before the broadcastAl-Kasser. According to him, the channel has been the subject of anonymous threats.
Iraqi activists and NGOs are alarmed by a recent upsurge in the repression of freedom of expression carried out, according to them, by the Iraqi authorities. For several weeks, Baghdad has been hunting down certain YouTubers and TikTokeurs accused of sharing “decadent content” which will “against customs and traditions”. Some of them were imprisoned, including a young woman whose fault was to broadcast videos in which she danced to pop.