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Iraq’s Sajida Obeid: The voice, the body, the memory

Few artists captured Iraq’s shifting social landscape as vividly as Sajida Obeid. Emerging under the Baʿath regime, surviving the violence of the 2000s, and rising anew in the digital era, she turned taboo subjects—drinking, desire, female autonomy—into shared moments of song and dance. Her work reveals how Iraqis negotiated control, morality, and joy across decades of upheaval.

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Between reform and repetition: What Iraq’s 2025 elections reveal about trust, power, and accountability 

As Iraq heads into another election cycle, questions loom large over whether the process will deepen reform or further entrench elite dominance. Jummar speaks to political analyst Sajad Jiyad about the prospects for genuine change, the legacy of the Tishreen uprising, and the persistent structural barriers facing Iraqi voters today.

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“Election cycles tend to be nothing but seasons of performativity” 

Researcher and sociologist Ruba Ali Al-Hassani on the legacy of Tishreen, epistemic violence, and Iraq’s ongoing struggle for justice and legitimacy

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One million US Dollars spent on Iraqi election ads: Tracking three months of costly social media campaigning 

Between July and September 2025, Iraqi political forces and figures spent more than one million US Dollars on paid advertisements on Facebook and Instagram, according to Meta’s data. Yet, the striking fact is that 60 percent of this spending came from pages with no declared political identity. This article tracks, through figures and details, how Iraq’s political actors are pouring vast sums into the digital sphere.

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Iraqis’ choices in the 2025 elections: boycott, participation, and hesitation

Between those who view boycott as protest, those who wager on participation as a limited chance for change, and those who hesitate between the two, this article explores the three choices facing Iraqis in the upcoming November elections.

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From citizens to sects: The implications of Jaafari Code on Iraq  

With the adoption of the Jaafari Code, Iraq moves towards redefining citizenship and transforming the law from being a social safety valve into a tool that deepens sectarianism and family disintegration.

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Iraq’s Christians: a fraught journey of political representation 

The presence of Christians in Iraq dates back to the first century AD. Today they receive parliamentary representation through quota seats, yet even these seats are subject to polarisation and contestation.

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Iraq’s revenge election: Between numbers, probabilities, and political reckoning 

The 2025 elections are not so much a contest for parliamentary seats as they are a battle of political vengeance — one that the Coordination Framework is waging to reclaim what it lost in 2021, as anxiety continues to dominate the mood of an angry Iraqi public.

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Football, film, and storytelling: Yamam Nabeel and the Iraq that lives beyond borders

A storyteller and cultural bridge-builder, Yamam Nabeel uses art, film, and community projects to preserve Iraqi memory and amplify voices too often silenced.

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From a unified coalition to fragmented maps: The story of twenty years of Shi’a alliances

The Shi’a forces today are no longer what they used to be when Saddam Hussein’s regime collapsed in 2003. After being once united under a single umbrella, the race for influence has divided them.

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“If safe drinking water reaches us, I will throw a party and prostrate to God in thanks”.   

The fishermen once plied the waters and returned with their catch, mooring their boats within calling distance of the houses at a place known as Al-Ankur— a tongue of land stretching deep into the lake like a miniature Cape of Good Hope. But that changed when Lake Habbaniyah began to recede.

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“What I lived through alone could become a collective fate under the Shariʿa personal status code”: How can a child know the meaning of romantic or sexual love?  

Today I feel the need to tell my story, even if my hands tremble and tears slip through. My experience was not an isolated incident, but an early glimpse of what the so-called Shariʿa personal status code could mean today—especially after it was passed on 27 August 2025 in Iraq’s parliament, just one hour after being received from the legal committee of the Shiʿa Endowment. A total of 167 MPs voted in favour.

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Features

The deadly thirst: Iraqi Kurdistan is drying too! 

Thirst is no longer confined to southern Iraq and its salty Basra. Even the mountains of Kurdistan, once described as the country’s water reservoir, are beginning to wither. Rivers are cut off, wells run dry, and villages are silently abandoned. This is drought creeping in relentlessly.

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Analysis

Home confinement in Iraq… Women imprisoned by society’s ignorance  

How did families turn, with time, into gaolers, working for free for the establishment at the expense of their daughters’ happiness? Are we now completely indifferent towards them and unable to speak out or disobey society’s outdated traditions? Have we become so alien to them that we are capable of throwing our own flesh and blood underground in horrific, brutal sacrificial rituals only to please people and get their approval?

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Features

"But you’re a virgin!" Being unmarried in an Iraqi gynaecological clinic 

If you are single or never married, you’ll find it difficult to be seen by a gynaecologist or face challenges in having a medical condition acknowledged for examination in hospitals. You may even be asked to bring a male guardian to obtain a doctor’s approval to examine you. Here are the experiences of four women living with pain.

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Features

Behind the scenes of political concern: What will Trump do to Iraq? 

What are the concerns in Iraq regarding Donald Trump's return to the White House? What discussions and warnings about this are taking place behind the scenes in Iraqi politics? Will damaging the Iraqi economy and security be part of the agenda for the incoming American president?