Women’s deaths shock Iraq

Social media star gunned down in Baghdad, sparking fears over series of murders

SHE was a 22-year-old former beauty queen, fashion model and social media star, whose daring outfits revealed tattoos on her arms and shoulder.

Tara Fares won fame and 2.8 million Instagram followers in conservative, Muslim-majority Iraq with outspoken opinions on personal freedom, such as: “I’m not doing anything in the dark like many others; everything I do is in the broad daylight.”

It was also the way she died. Last week, she was shot dead at the wheel of her white Porsche on a busy Baghdad street during the day, apparently by a man who leaned in briefly and opened fire before speeding away on a motorcycle with an accomplice.

The killing, caught on security camera video, followed the slaying of a female activist in the southern city of Basra and the mysterious deaths of two well-known beauty experts.

The violence has shocked Iraq, raising fears of a return to the kind of attacks on prominent figures that plagued the country at the height of its sectarian strife.

Iraq is still recovering from its bloody fight against Islamic State militants. The country has been without a government since national elections in May, and riots have repeatedly broken out in the south over the authorities’ failure to provide basic services.

“These harrowing crimes are worrying us,” said Iraqi human rights activist Hana Adwar. “There are groups that want to terrify society through the killing of popular women and activists… and to tell other women to abandon their work and stay at home.”

It is not clear whether the deaths of the women are connected, and reports that they knew each other could not be confirmed.

A YouTube channel drew more than 120 000 followers in addition to those on Instagram, where Fares shared make-up tips.

She gave details of a brief marriage at 16 to an abusive husband who posted intimate photos of her on social media and took away their now 3-year-old son. Fares said the experience taught her “strength… and how not to let anyone control me in anything”.

While many young Iraqis shared her videos and pictures, others criticised her lifestyle as racy and un-Islamic.

She lived in Iraq’s self-ruled Kurdish region with her family, visiting Baghdad from time to time. In a TV interview this year, she said her family had converted to Islam in 2002.

She was buried in the Shia holy city of Najaf, her grave decorated with a black and white photo of her, along with red plastic flowers.

In August, Dr Rafeef al-Yassiri, a plastic surgeon labelled “Iraq’s Barbie”, died under mysterious circumstances. Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi has ordered an investigation into what he called “well-planned kidnappings and killings”. He said organised groups were “carrying out a plan to destabilise the security situation under the pretext of fighting perversion”.

In one of her videos, Fares had chastised a Shia cleric who she said had sought a temporary marriage with her, a tradition in Shia communities that critics compare to prostitution.

“I’m not afraid of the one who denies the existence of God, but I’m really afraid of the one who kills and chops off heads to prove the existence of God,” she wrote on Instagram in July. |