Prominent Iraqi TikToker Shot Dead Outside Home in Baghdad
A gunman assassinated a prominent Iraqi "Tiktoker," Um Fahd, on Friday night while the social media influencer was inside her car in front of her house in Baghdad, a security source said Saturday.
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Mundo Iraque
A friend of the 'tiktoker', who was in the car, was also injured in the shooting.
The source indicated that the killer "escaped after committing the crime" and that the Iraqi Interior Ministry has formed an investigation team to identify the attacker and discover his motivation for the crime.
Ghufran Mahdi Sawadi, known on the TikTok social network as Um Fahd, gained hundreds of thousands of followers on the application, where she posted videos dancing to Iraqi music.
In February 2023, a Baghdad court sentenced her to six months in prison for "publishing several videos that included content and statements against public morality" and that the sentence was intended to "achieve general deterrence" to prevent the creation of content that the Iraqi authorities considered inappropriate.
According to the Iraqi media, the murder of Um Fahd happened days after the 'tiktoker' had an open dispute with the famous 'blogger' Dalia Naem, who threatened to expose the victim's sexual relations with senior Iraqi government officials, a situation that ended up causing a series of resignations of officials from the Ministries of the Interior and Defence.
In 2018, Iraqi influencer Tara Fares, 22, was also shot dead in Baghdad during a wave of femicides in the country.
In 2023, the Iraqi government launched the "Baligh" campaign, a report in Arabic, to encourage citizens to report any content on social networks that "was not consistent with public morality", which has led to the persecution of several influencers, according to human rights organisations.
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