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Iraqi Mullahs banned Iraqi singer Kazim
al-Sahir pictures
31.8.2005
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Iraqi Mullahs condemn mobile
phone company's singer-mascot
Basra, 30 August (AKI) - Shiite clerics in the
southern port city of Basra have recently issued
harsh condemnations of the popular Iraqi singer
Kazim al-Sahir, who features in the publicity
campaign of Iraqna - one of Iraq's three mobile
phone operators. The clerics have described al-Sahir
as "a stooge of Iraq's former regime".
Sheikh Mohammed Alway, who is close to the Islamist
Fadila party, has called for posters of the singer
to be removed, arguing that it is a "legal duty to
burn our bridges with the past and the Baathists and
their supporters. Al-Sahir was already popular in
Iraq during Saddam Hussein's rule. |
Kazim al-Sahir
Photo: Internet |
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"All true believers should pull down any images of
al-Sahir and oppose Iraqna if it continues to use as
its mascot the image of this person who symbolises
an oppressive regime," said Alway.
Locals have responded to Alway and other clerics'
calls, tearing down adverts bearing pictures of al-Sahir
from hoardings. But one distributor of rechargable
Iraqna phone-cards described the episode as "more of
a provocation towards Iraqna than Kazim al-Sahir".
In Basra, the mobile phone market is being
aggressively carved up by the dominant MTC (a
Kuwaiti mobile company) and Iraqna operators (owned
by Egyptian telecoms magnate Naguib Sawiris' Orascom
Telecom, one of the largest mobile phone operators
in the Middle East and Africa). Asia Cell, Iraq's
third mobile operator, holds a much smaller slice of
the market, which is expanding most rapidly among
young people.
www.adnki.com
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