An investigation into the deep state of real estate in Hilla, shows its arms extending across municipal departments, real estate registry and other regulatory bodies, all for the benefit of government officials and judges. This report is also about those people who, when they show up in their SUVs, seem to make the green spaces disappear.

When Nebuchadnezzar’s wife (562-605 B.C.), Amytis Queen of Babylon, arrived from the green highlands of northern Iran and became homesick, the powerful king of Babylon built his hanging gardens for her. The ascending series of tiered green gardens he built were filled with palm, pine and talc trees, making it one of the Seven Wonders of the World. 

Today there is no trace of this wonder, and some even believe it to be a myth.  

The parks and gardens that exist in Babylon today are also on the verge of becoming the stuff of legends, soon even to be forgotten.  

A deep state of real estate  

The city’s breathing lungs have been systematically robbed by influential people in Babylon. According to sources close to them, they drive around in their four-wheel-drive cars and pinpoint the places they like.  

They usually choose areas with little construction, and then begin the process of converting these lands, including green spaces and parks, into investment projects, or distributing them as residential plots among themselves. The lands are often in locations where the value of a single plot can reach hundreds of millions or even billions of dinars.  

This is the real estate deep state in Hilla, extending across the municipality’s departments, real estate registration and other regulatory bodies.  

“Each one of them uses their power and influence to snatch land in what might appear to be a legal manner using exceptions to the law, in addition to approvals and powers, all in an inhumane manner,” added the source, who preferred to remain anonymous.  

Forty per cent of the land, which should be spaces that pump oxygen into the city’s dusty body, has been taken over by this lobby.  

The methods and influence used renders the remaining parks, and the land allocated to them, “unsafe” as Amir al-Maamouri, an Independent MP from the province, put it.  

“The Municipality and the Urban Planning Department do not provide us with figures and numbers of green spaces, despite the official letters we send,’ he told Jummar.  

It is not only green spaces, but what are known as white spaces have also been taken. There are commercial plots in strategic locations that are leased as revenue for the state, and if they are sold, they are sold at auction or for investment.  Yet, they have been allocated as residential plots.  

By law, if construction in neighbourhoods or cities reaches 50 per cent, the remaining plots become privileged and are not allocated. “What would happen then in the case where construction reaches 100 per cent,” asked Maamouri. 

It is not randomly, there are expensive residential plots in the neighbourhoods of Al-Akramin, Al-Muhandessin, Babylon and Al-Asatzah, whose values can reach more than 500 million dinars, that have been seized.  

There is a mechanism for theft, according to al-Maamouri, which relies on manipulating records of land distribution – which are the processes by which land is distributed fairly – by giving out numbers for plots of land that do not exist. An operation is then undertaken to replace ownership, and this process is done with the agreement of official departments.  

Because of this corrupt process, large green and white spaces plus commercial plots in the city of Hilla have disappeared.  

Other laws are also being exploited, such as exchanging land under the pretext that it is in an area prone to flooding, or close to an oil pipeline, or other fictitious reasons that might be used to justify the exchange of fictitious plots or land at low prices.  

Al-Maamouri identified about 15 sites, each containing approximately 30 plots of land, all of which were distributed in favour of particular people over others.  

Regulators are often silenced by offering them privileged plots in the city centre.  

Judea River   

The Judea River, which is part of the Euphrates River also known historically as the Nabu River, dissects the city centre of Hilla, running for ten kilometres from the Thawra area to the Ibrahim Al-Khalil area.  

In 2022, the city’s urban face was marred by the accumulation of waste on its banks. Local residents were encouraged by the start of a 210 billion dinars project to develop the river. The project included tree-lining the river and building 16 bridges for vehicles and dozens of bridges for pedestrians. Residents were optimistic about the project’s designs and eagerly awaited the green zone that would stretch on both sides of the river. However, the taste of joy quickly turned to bile in the mouths of residents.  

‘Everything has changed,’ said Amira Jalil, an urban engineer who lives in a house across the Judea River.  

One summer morning, Jalil awoke to the sounds of bulldozers destroying a street in front of her home. They were mowing down all the balcony areas of the houses that residents had organised as gardens.  

“This was a violation of urban planning laws. According to urban and rural housing standards in Iraq, a person needs six metres of open space distributed between yards, playgrounds and parks. These standards have been flouted,’ Jalil told Jummar.  

The Babylon University engineering professor is trying to bring greenery back to her home by planting a living roof on her house. Through university seminars, she emphasises the importance of green areas as a standard of living that must be included in the basic design of cities. She said that a preliminary calculation, based on Hilla’s population, revealed that the city needs at least two million leafy trees and 2,000 hectares of cultivated areas.  

Jalil plans to file a complaint if more housing is built in front of her house. She said that she would claim compensation and relocate to another area.  

Prior to this, there have been cases taken to the Integrity Commission regarding the conversion of green spaces into residential areas. As has previously been the case, nothing came of them. The real estate lobby even made moves to steal the green space that tattooed on the shoulder of the river before the project was completed. Residential plots were distributed in the most expensive part of the project space.  

This was then followed by a number of lawsuits. 

“We were prevented from investigating this area,” said Ali Hatem of the Integrity Commission in Babylon.  

Hatem, who asked to use a pseudonym before speaking to Jummar, added that “the plots were distributed to former governor Hassan Mandil, in addition to an influential judge, the director of real estate registration and his son, and national security officers, who all used fictitious names.” 

According to Hatem, environmental and urban planning laws were violated and sabotaged, as the plots were planned for approximately 1000 metres on the riverbank.  

“They didn’t allow for even a branch or a street between the plots. Now children have to walk 860 metres if they want to get to school,’ said a source from the Urban Planning Department who asked not to be named.  

According to the source, the Director of Urban Planning did not agree to this encroachment, but she was bypassed. Approval came from the Minister of Municipalities and Public Works at the time.  

By way of example, the value of the property acquired by the ‘big heads’ is estimated at 1-3 billion, based on their size of 700 square metres per unit.  

No side objected to what happened. 

Other conquests  

The conquest of Nabu, the Mesopotamian god of vegetation and writing, as well as patron god of scribes, literacy and wisdom, was the final conquest of the real estate lobby. Before that, they had conquered many of the gardens in Babylon.  

On Street 40, the city’s most prestigious and commercial centre, a large mosque, formerly the Saddam Mosque, now the Hilla Religious University, has been taken over by paramilitary group, Asaib Ahl al-Haq. Behind the mosque is a green area that is, in principle, forbidden to be tampered with because it is a space for the city’s crowds and provides respite from overcrowded buildings. It is an area which exceeds 7,400 metres that has been seized and converted into residential plots and distributed to influential people.  

Hatem told us that these transactions include legal exceptions which mean that, even if the Urban Planning Department does not approve the transaction, an employee may be forced to sign regardless. One municipality employee was forced took a leave of absence in order to escape being party to the process. 

The move to change the nature of this land from green to residential was met with a large protest campaign in 2019. At the time, activist Hassan Al-Tufan was arrested on charges of insulting the judiciary.  

Further east on the same street, a green space belonging to the Agricultural Association was illegally offered out for investment in 2019. 

 However, when the investor started the project, the Integrity Commission put a halt to it. An imprisonment order was issued against the assistant director of real estate registration for illegally transferring the land from Hilla Municipality to the Agricultural Association. 

 The Integrity Commission recovered the green land, but it did not return it to the state. It was again granted to judges by changing its usage from a green space to residential.  

Street 60 was not spared from this wave of acquisition. “There is a plot of more than two thousand square metres that was supposed to be a park,’ said the urban planning officer. “It was impossible to turn it into something else, because an oil pipeline runs underneath it, and there are pressure towers for electricity.”  

However, it turned into Hammurabi Tourist City, which includes a shopping mall and wedding venue owned by Salam al-Tufaili, a businessman with close ties to present and previous governments. 

The cables were buried underground, and the city was inaugurated during last year’s Eid al-Adha. 

In the past five years alone, more than ten large green spaces in the choked city centre have been transformed into giant projects, plots and houses. 

 The transactions for these properties have been passed through departments using threats, seduction, or binding employees to the decisions of those above them. Urban planning and the environment have been forgotten. 

Bypassing the environment  

According to the Urban Housing Standards manual, issued by the Ministry of Housing and Construction, the division of residential land begins with the mahalla  or sub-neigbourhood (population size: 2400-3600), then the neighbourhood (9600-14400), then the district  (38400-57600). The manual emphasises the importance of the provision of public squares, green parks and children’s playgrounds according to age groups and at all planning levels. 

According to Salwan Al-Agha, Director of Projects at the Hilla Municipality, cities and residential sectors are divided according to pre-approved criteria: 55 per cent housing, 16 per cent transport and communications, 10.5 per cent green and open areas, 7.5 per cent industry, 4.5 per cent public facilities and services, 4 per cent private use, and 2.5 per cent trade and administration.  

Al-Agha told Jummar that these criteria were difficult to implement, admitting that the lack of usage and activation of green space was “a governmental failure, because they are present in the basic design of cities.” The reason for this negligence were due to the lack of financial allocations.  

“In the past, the governorate paid attention to parks, but they were abandoned and neglected due to the lack of options to convert them into cash,” said Al-Agha.  

He added that the conversion of green land into residential areas was not allowed, especially with the current global trend to increase the number of green spaces due to climate change and its effects. This has not deterred those in Babylon, and the law does not take measures to prevent this practice.  

“The law allows exceptions to change the nature of the land. It is approved by governors and ministers and then the change becomes legal,” he said.  

As for the function of the environment departments in preventing these actions, Al-Agha explained that “The work of the environment department is currently focused on dealing with environmental pollution and the waste of factories and projects.” The amount of available green spaces and their conversion into housing and commercial projects was not a priority for follow-up.  

Makki al-Shammari, director of Babylon’s Department of Environment, told Jummar that his department will not approve letters that comes from the municipality to convert green land. “Unfortunately, as a result, the paperwork for such projects has now begun to bypass our department.” 

“In principle, any project must go through the Department of Environment. The first question the department asks is: What is the class of the land? If it is green, approval will not be granted,’ Al-Shammari said.  

Engineer Amira described what has happened to the green areas in Hilla as a catastrophe.  

“As a preliminary calculation, given the population of Hilla, we need at least two million leafy trees and two thousand hectares of cultivated areas,” she told us.  

In all of Babylon, the area of cultivated land fell from 330,000 to 160,000 dunums in 2021, according to a previous Jummar report. Once you move 16 kilometres west of the city centre, property prices start to fall, so the green spaces there are not worth as much.  

In Abu Ghargh, green spaces look green on municipal maps but, in reality, they are neglected garbage dumps. Residents have accepted the idea that they are garbage dumps. Instead of taking garbage to sanitary landfills, the municipality burns its rubbish in these yards, causing serious environmental pollution.  

In accordance with the Iraqi proverb, ‘I show you death so that you accept burning’, the equivalent of being ‘stuck between a rock and hard place’, residents then accepted their conversion into residential plots and investment land, instead of having to deal with the sight of waste and fires. The municipality has referred two green areas to investment lands, one as a farmers’ market and the other for livestock. No one has objected.  

‘Less than ten percent of the green areas have actually become parks,’ said Hadi al-Jashami, a member of the former municipal council.  

Over the past ten years, only one park has been opened in Abu Ghraq, which is the Hope Park. The ribbon was cut at its opening by the district and municipality director and a few employees. They were taking pictures in front of a small circle of flowers in an area not exceeding 50 square metres under the title ‘Opening of the Garden of Hope’.  

Within hours, these photos became trending content in Iraq and sparked ridicule on social media for this so-called achievement. District officials were outraged and removed the post from the municipality’s page. But too little too late.  Even this ‘Garden of Hope’ was neglected weeks after its inauguration. 

Al-Jash’ami talked about what he called “the first and biggest crime in the district since 2003,” when more than 300 dunums of productive agricultural land were carved out in favour of building a residential complex that were allegedly to be low-cost homes for low-income people. When the Al-Kawthar residential complex was completed, even middle-income employees could not touch its doors. The price of a residential unit was more than 125 million dinars (about $78,000 today).  

In addition to the physical effects of bulldozing agricultural land and cutting off production by turning it into housing and projects, the psychological effects are severe. This is particularly acute on children, as studies have found that children who grow up in a green environment have a lower risk of psychological injuries over the years. A Danish university study found that children who grow up near forests, parks or gardens are 55 per cent less likely to suffer from mental illness, compared to their peers who grew up in surroundings without access to such greenery.  

A growing number of epidemiological studies have demonstrated that preserving green spaces has positive health effects, including improved mental health and reduced depression.  

The first depression in Babylon was extinguished by Nebuchadnezzar with his Hanging Gardens. Who will extinguish the Babylonians’ gloom now?