ERBIL, Iraq (North Press) – After a month and a half, the relationship between the 24-year-old Noor Tariq, a pseudonym for an Iraqi girl residing in Baghdad, and a guy she met on social media, tendedto apathy.
Tariq lived three weeks of fear, anxiety and a poor psychological state under pressure as that guy threatened to publish her pictures naked on social media unless she obeys his requests.
“That guy, who, she later knew had a pseudonym, asked her $5,000,” which is a big amount for a girt in her prime of life, she told North Press.
Tariq thought about securing the required amount of money to get rid of extortion and exploitation, but she refrained wondering, “if I gave him the amount of money, do I guarantee that he will not blackmail me again?”
She procrastinated in order to find a solution for her problem, “the threat has put me in a state of horror and anxiety and driven me to think about committing suicide to not live with this scandal.”
The nightmare of Tariq has ended with the help of her friend, who informed a security center giving the number of the blackmailer and some of his general descriptions to be arrested by the security forces days after the reporting.
“Closer to a phenomenon”
With the technological development, the phenomenon of cyber extortion has spread in the eastern societies, as no day passes without knowing about a new victim of cyber extortion.
Social researchers believed that the absence of a special law and the decline of the level of social awareness are the main reasons of the extortion cases.
Such cases are repeated daily; not to mention those remain covered for fear of the “scandal.”
The Directorate of Community Police Media in Iraq, Abdulhaqfiz Hadi al-Jubouri, said that they have received a number of complaints about people being exposed to cyber extortion, and they have dealt with in a professional manner.
“These cases have increased and became closer to a phenomenon, which is very worrying,” he stressed.
The Community Policing is a small body of several government agencies working to address cases of cyber extortion, such as the Anti-Crime Directorate, the National Intelligence Service, and others, according to al-Jubouri.
Community awareness
Al-Jubouri stressed the need to raise awareness of the citizens to combat this phenomenon addressing the religious, tribal and cultural foundations in addition to the NGOs to cooperate to raise the social awareness.
He believed that his phenomenon started to threaten the civil peace and societal security, especially with the absence of a strict law, calling to expedite in enacting the cybercrime law.
“The Community Policing has organized hundreds of campaigns which particularly focused on females in the universities, high schools and government departments,” he pointed out.
Moreover, conferences and workshops were held to urge the residents to secure their personal accounts on social media and their mobile phones and not to be drawn into “romantic relationships via cyberspace.”
Some of the victims, especially the females, do not want to submitting a complaint due to personal and social considerations fearing of the scandal and their families’ reactions. Thus, they try to solve their problems amicably without resorting to the judiciary, it is what al-Jubouri stressed.
In 2020, the Community Policing managed to solve 685 cyber extortion cases. Soon, 2021 semi-annual toll will be published, according to al-Jubouri.
Absence of law
There is no law or a legal article that was enacted to solve the cyber extortion cases, while the Iraqi authorities have dedicated articles of the Iraqi Penal Code No. 111 of 1969, amended and enforceable, to treat such crimes.
In 2020, the Iraqi parliament finished his second reading of the cybercrimes bill, without voting on it, as it was faced with objections due to affecting the freedom of expression.
“The reality of the aforementioned bill does not affectively serve the case but it contains a kind of restriction of freedoms,” Iraqi MP, Rezan Sheikh Deleir told North Press.
She stressed that the cybercrimes bill does not include articles that maintain residents’ rights from extortion crimes, but it cares about the interests of the security of the country and the security affairs more than the social cases.
Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) has the cybercrime law separated from other laws that concern the national security and other security matters; it is what the Iraqi law bill lacks.