While spectators were busy celebrating Iraq’s 1-0 victory in the Shiite holy city, the nation’s religious authorities were virulently condemning the game’s opening ceremony, which featured female musicians and dancers.
Photo: Iraqi Football Association / FacebookThe ceremony included three dancers, two women and one man, dressed head to toe in the colors of the Iraqi national flag. It also featured a female musician who performed a rendition of the Iraqi national anthem on a black violin.
However, Iraq’s Shiite endowment office and several political leaders criticized the ceremony – without clearly stating what they had taken issue with. They appear to have found the women’s performance in the holy city to be immodest and disrespectful.
Photo: Iraqi Football Association / FacebookThe Shiite endowment office released a statement on Thursday calling for a stop “unethical behavior” in the holy city.
“We sadly received the news of the clear violation to the sanctity of holy city of Karbala during the opening ceremony of a sport championship in Karbala stadium,” the Shiite endowment office said.
“Everybody in the holy city of Karbala is responsible for protecting the sanctity of the city and the Shiite figure’s holy graves that are present in Karbala.”
Karbala is the city where Imam Hussein, one of the most important figures in Shiism, was killed alongside his companions in the early days of Islam. It is one of the holiest Shiite cities in the world due to the numerous shrines devoted to Shiite figures. Millions of Shiites from Iran and elsewhere flock to it annually in the Ashura.
Nouri al-Maliki, the former prime minister of Iraq and head of the State of Law Coalition, also released a statement on Thursday condemning the opening ceremony.
Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki. File photo: AP
“We condemn and reject strongly what happened yesterday night in the stadium of the holy Karbala province at the opening of West Asia Championship, accompanied by a dancing musical concert. [It] constitutes a violation of the holiness of the city and the tearing of the sanctity of Imam Hussein’s city, peace be upon him,” Maliki said.
“We call on the government to urgently open an investigation to hold [to account] those responsible and those standing behind this flagrant violation of the holiness of the holy city, whether the local government, the Ministry of Youth and Sports, or the Iraqi Football Association to ensure such things don’t happen again.”
The local government in Karbala released a statement on Thursday foisting the blame onto the Iraqi Ministry of Youth and Sport.
“We condemn the sport championship opening ceremony in Karbala stadium,” the office of the Governor of Karbala said in a statement Thursday.
“Our only responsibility was providing roads and security to the attendees of the ceremony, while the Ministry of Youth and Sport was fully in charge of the ceremony,” the statement added.
Ahmed al-Musawi, head of the public relations department in Iraqi Ministry of Youth and Sport, accused Iraqi politicians of hypocrisy for tolerating behavior considered immodest in Baghdad.
“There are Iraqi politicians who first need to go and close all the bars and nightclubs in Baghdad before attacking the Ministry of Youth and Sport,” Musawi told Rudaw on Thursday.
“There is no law that restricts the Ministry of Youth and Sport from implementing such ceremonies in Karbala,” Musawi said.
If the criticism continues, future sporting events will be taken away from Kabala and held in Basra or Erbil instead, he added.
Although Iraqi women enjoy equal civil rights with men under the Iraqi constitution, religious conservatism continues to permeate all areas of public life, clashing with the socially liberal values found among sections of the urban youth.
Several Iraqi Shiite leaders, including Maliki, are close allies of Iran, a Shiite theocracy, where women have long been banned from spectating sports events.
FIFA, the international governing body of association football, lifted the ban on Iraqi stadiums hosting international matches on March 16, 2018. Erbil, Karbala, and Basra each have stadiums capable of hosting international level games.
The ban was imposed after Saddam Hussein’s 1990 invasion of Kuwait. FIFA lifted the ban in 2012, but reinstated it after a power outage at Erbil stadium during a match between Iraq and Jordan.
