Some clerics publicly endorsed this type of behavior, such as Shiite Sheikh Ali al-Yassiri from Babil, who told Al-Monitor, “It is our duty to enforce Islamic law by closing down clubs where singing and dancing take place.”
Shawan Daoudi, a member of the parliament’s Culture and Information Committee, told Al-Monitor that “the Iraqi Constitution provides individuals the freedom to act,” though he admitted to the existence “of religious extremists who control the streets and seek to impose their will.”
Daoudi also called on the state to “remain steadfast in protecting recreational places,” as Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi did when he demanded in July that “perpetrators be held accountable for their actions against hotels and public property.”
It is noteworthy that Abadi’s statements came in the wake of the Iraqi security forces’ July 20 raid on the Palestine Hotel in Baghdad forbidding alcoholic drinks. This pushed Iraqi Minister of Interior Mohammed al-Ghabban to meet that same day with the chairmen of the hotels and social clubs’ administrative boards and to lock up security officers for “abuse of power.”
The scope of the attacks goes beyond social clubs that cater to dancers and singers to include an attack by anonymous armed gunmen on the headquarters of the General Union of Writers and Authors in Baghdad in June.
In its search for religious groups endowed with military capabilities, Al-Monitor uncovered strange and interesting information. Gen. Salah Hussein from the Interior Ministry told Al-Monitor that there are “armed factions that extort club owners.”
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