Iraqi social media star Ghufran Sawadi, better known as Om Fahad, was shot dead outside her Baghdad home on Friday. An unidentified attacker reportedly shot Om Fahad in her car in the Zayouna district.
The attack was captured on video by a surveillance camera and shared on social media. It shows a gunman, who appeared to have pretended to be making a food delivery, shooting and killing Om Fahad on the spot.
Well-known Iraqi social media influencer Om Fahad, whose real name is Ghufran Sawadi, was shot and killed outside her home in Iraqhttps://t.co/Q3R09bwrQk pic.twitter.com/eTXcOcLZOM— Sky News (@SkyNews) April 27, 2024
Iraq’s interior ministry has formed a “specialised work team to find out the circumstances of the killing of a woman known on social media by unknown assailants.”
Who Was Om Fahad?
Om Fahad had become known for light-hearted TikTok videos of herself dancing to Iraqi music, wearing tight-fitting clothes. In February 2023, a court sentenced her to six months in jail for sharing “videos containing indecent speech that undermines modesty and public morality”.
The Iraqi government launched a campaign last year to clean up social media content that it said breached Iraqi “morals and traditions”.
An interior ministry committee was established to scour TikTok, YouTube, and other platforms for clips it deemed offensive. Several influencers have since been arrested, according to authorities.
Despite years of war and sectarian conflict after the 2003 US invasion to overthrow Saddam Hussein, Iraq has returned to a semblance of normality.
But civil liberties — for women, sexual minorities and other groups — remain constrained in the conservative society.
In 2018, model and influencer Tara Fares was shot dead by gunmen in Baghdad.
(With AFP Inputs)
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