BAGHDAD — Last Friday, Iraq's Minister for Communications, Hiyam al-Yasiri, ordered all pornographic websites in the country blocked.
The state-run Iraqi News Agency confirmed the blanket ban, quoting a statement by the ministry. The news was also published by government-aligned newspaper al-Sabah.
According to al-Sabah, “a committee tasked by the minister has blocked 400 websites,” the English-language Middle Eastern news site The New Arab reported.
The Iraqi government has periodically floated sweeping censorship measures, since the chaotic period following the 2003 downfall of the authoritarian Saddam Hussein regime. A bill aimed at censoring adult content, The New Arab reported, “was passed in 2015 by the Iraqi parliament but never implemented. The transport and communications ministry of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) subsequently said it would not abide by the law.”
Adult websites regularly register millions of visits from Iraq-based IP addresses. Those visits are now being routed via free VPN apps, The New Arab confirmed.
Copycat Censorship in Kurdistan
In the northern Kurdish region, 26 Kurdish lawmakers reportedly have signed a petition asking the presidency of the parliament to take similar measures in Kurdistan.
"Psychological, sociological and psychiatric scientific research have all proved that watching porn has major damages to the social, psychological, and moral aspects of individuals, especially the youth," Omar Gulpi, a lawmaker from the Kurdistan Justice Group in the Kurdistan parliament, told The New Arab.
The Kurdistan government ordered all ISPs to install “family package” porn filters by default. However, The New Arab reports that “no action was taken, and family packages are still unavailable in all internet service companies in the country.”