A DECISION by the authorities to declare the “emo” look – popular among some Iraqi youngsters – as “satanic” has led to the stoning of at least 14 youths over the past three weeks.

“Emo” – according to this report– is a form of punk music developed in the US. Fans are known for their distinctive dress, often including tight jeans, T-shirts with logos and distinctive long or spiky haircuts.

Iraqi activists said this unnamed teenager was brutally killed by religious police for having an ’emo’ hairstyle

It’s a look that outraged Iraq’s Interior Ministry, which linked it to “Satanism” and ordered a community police force to stamp it out.

The killings have reportedly been carried out in Baghdad by Shi’ite militants.

Militants in Shi’ite neighborhoods, where the stonings have taken place, circulated lists on Saturday naming more youths targeted to be killed if they do not change the way they dress.

The bodies of 14 younsters have been brought to three hospitals in eastern Baghdad bearing signs of having been beaten to death with rocks or bricks, security and hospital sources told Reuters under condition they not be identified because they were not authorised to speak to the media.

Nine bodies were brought to hospitals in Sadr City, a vast, poor Shi’ite neighborhood, three were brought to East Baghdad’s main al-Kindi hospital and two were brought to the central morgue, medical sources said.

Six other young people, including two girls, were wounded in beatings intended as warnings, the security sources said.

A doctor at al-Kindi hospital told Reuters:

Last week I signed the death certificates of three of those young people, and the reason for death I wrote in my own hand was severe skull fractures.

A leaflet distributed in the Shi’ite Bayaa district of east Baghdad seen by Reuters on Saturday had 24 names of youths targeted for killing. It declared:

We strongly warn you, to all the obscene males and females, if you will not leave this filthy work within four days the punishment of God will descend upon you at the hand of the Mujahideen.

Another leaflet in Sadr City bore 20 names.

We are the Brigades of Anger. We warn you, if you do not get back to sanity and the right path, you will be killed.

In a statement last month the interior ministry said it was monitoring “the ’emo’ phenomenon, or Satanism” which it said was spreading through schools, particularly among teenage girls.

They wear tight clothes that bear paintings of skulls, they use school implements with skulls and wear rings in their noses and tongues as well as other weird appearances.

After reports of the stonings circulated on Iraqi media, the interior ministry said this week that no murders on its files could be blamed on violent reactions to the “emo” look.

All cases of murder recorded were for revenge, social and common criminal reasons.

Surprisingly, leading Shi’ite clerics have condemned the stonings. Abdul-Raheem al-Rikabi, Baghdad representative for Iraq’s most influential Shi’ite cleric, Ali al-Sistani, called the killings “terrorist attacks”.

Hat tip: BarrieJohn