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An Iraqi Christian family in the village of Qaraqush after fleeing Mosul. Photograph: Safin Hamed/AFP/Getty
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Jihadi extremists who have taken over the Iraqi city of Mosul have denied ordering
families to have their daughters undergo female genital mutilation in order to prevent
"immorality" or face severe punishment, as claimed by a senior UN humanitarian
official on Thursday.
Supporters of the Islamic State (Isis), previously known as the Islamic State in Iraq and
the Levant, dismissed the story as propaganda based on a fake document though
residents of Mosul, as well as Kurdish officials, insisted it was true.
The claim about enforced FGM came from the UN's deputy humanitarian coordinator
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Isis denies ordering that all girls in
Mosul undergo FGM
Doubts grow over UN report, seemingly reliant on year-old
document from Syria thought to have been doctored
Ian Black and Fazel Hawramy
The Guardian, Thursday 24 July 2014 18.29 BST
in Iraq, Jacqueline Badcock, who told reporters that up to 4 million women and girls
aged 11-46 faced the risk of genital mutilation. "This is something very new for Iraq,
particularly in this area, and is of grave concern and does need to be addressed," she
said. "This is a fatwa from Isis. This is not the will of Iraqi people, or the women of Iraq
in these vulnerable areas covered by the terrorists."
Reports about the issue have been circulating in Iraqi media for the past few days. On
Wednesday a Kurdish website, BasNews, reported that the fatwa had been issued by
the self-proclaimed "Caliph" of the Islamic State, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, as a "gift" to
the people of Mosul. BasNews said on Thursday that it stood by its story. "Of course
Isis would deny this," the editor, Hawar Abdulrazaq, told the Guardian.
Badcock's comments came in a briefing by videolink from her base in Irbil, capital of
the Kurdish regional government, to reporters at the UN headquarters in Geneva.
But plans for a statement by the UK international development secretary, Justine
Greening, were dropped as doubts grew about the accuracy of the claim.
Suspicions about its veracity were based partly on the fact that FGM is not required by
Islam and is not prevalent in Iraq. It is most widespread in Egypt, Sudan and east
Africa.
A document circulating on social media purporting to be the Isis fatwa was in fact
dated July 2013, originated in Aleppo, Syria, and was widely described as having being
photoshopped. It appeared on Thursday on the website of the Saudi-owned TV channel
al-Arabiya.
Ahmed Obaydi, a spokesman for Mosul police, told BasNews: "Baghdadi's decision to
have all women circumcised is, as he claims, to prevent immorality and promote
Islamic attitudes among Muslims. The decision was made by Baghdadi as a 'gift' for
people in Mosul." But Mohammed, a local journalist, told the Guardian he knew no one
who had been told by Isis that their female relatives should undergo FGM. "This is
mainly media hype with no substance," he said.
Isis supporters quickly dismissed the story as a hoax. "If Isis responds to every lie and
rumour they will not be able to control all these areas you hear about," tweeted one.
"Please ask UN to prove their claims before you hear from us." The same Twitter
account, whose name is derived from an Arabic word meaning "monster", contains
multiple images of the decapitated heads of Syrian soldiers taken in the Raqqa areas
near the Iraqi border.
According to the Iraqi paper al-Mustaqbal, which also reported on the alleged fatwa
earlier this week, the practice of FGM is alien to Iraqi society except the Kurdish
provinces. Worldwide, more than 130 million girls and women have undergone FGM.
The FGM story broke against a background of wider concern about the situation in
Mosul, whose Christian community has been forced to flee under threat of forced
conversion or execution by jihadists who have turned churches into mosques and
confiscated property.
Iraq's prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki, has lambasted Isis for its "criminality and
terrorism". Last weekend Isis gave the city's Christians a stark choice: convert to
Islam, pay a religious tax, or face death.
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