Similar to the present development in north-western Pakistan, Islamic extremist militants are forcing stores which sell CDs and DVDs to shut down in central and southern Iraq, and according to Associated Press' correspondents in Iraq, Omar Sinan and Yahya Barzanji, there has even been incidents where employees of music stores have been killed.

In November 2006, it was reported by a UN news agency that at least 75 singers have been killed since the turmoil began in Iraq in 2003, among these the 20-year-old singer Muhammad Jabry whose decapitated body was found with a note saying that "this was the destiny of those who sing American words".

In the capital city, people have stopped listening to music in public because they fear that they will draw the attention of Islamic hardliners who regard pop music a source of corruption and shameful decadence. Listening to Western pop music, and more specifically: American pop music, will make you an associate with the American troops in the country. People are afraid even to walk into a music store fearing that someone is watching them, and faced with these dangers of purchasing music, many Baghdad residents turn to the Internet, using their mobile phones to listen to songs.


"You deserve to die"

Associated Press interviewed a 21-year-old man who ran his own music store in eastern Baghdad until, in September 2006, followers of the radical shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr came to his shop and told him to shut it down. They left a letter saying:

"You infidel and devil-follower ... you deserve to die for pushing Muslims to corruption and adultery."