That's the Special Representative of the United Nations Secretary-General for Iraq and Head of the United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI), Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert in Baghdad on June 20th insisting that social media must counter hate speech.
We'd take the remarks a little more seriously if we hadn't just read Alyssa J. Rubin (NEW YORK TIMES):
In one social media clip, a young Iraqi woman dances at a national soccer tournament. In another, she dances at her son’s birthday party.
A different post shows a Baghdad fashionista modeling clothes, including an outfit based on the Iraqi Army uniform.
A fourth features a young man in a black sweatshirt and pants interviewing a young woman, also clad in black, about her private life. It is one of several clips he has made of young people dressed in close-fitting clothes that strike conservative Iraqis as provocative.
A few months ago, the people featured in these clips were stars of Iraq’s booming social media scene. No longer.
They have been largely silenced by being tried, convicted and sentenced to time in Iraq’s overcrowded prison system because of new Interior Ministry rules against “indecent” or “immoral” content on social media.
This crackdown on social media is relatively new, but is of a piece with a broader campaign to silence, sideline or co-opt those who publicly question or criticize the government.
That wider effort traces its roots to the months of demonstrations in 2019 and 2020, when young Iraqis poured into the streets demanding an end to corruption, a reduction in Iranian influence in Iraq and a new era of openness. Those demonstrations eventually forced the resignation of the prime minister, who was supported by Iranian-linked parties in the government.
