Iraq parliament bans online battle games, citing 'negative' influence
Iraq’s parliament voted on Wednesday to ban popular online
video games including PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds and Fortnite, citing their
“negative” influence especially on the young in a country long plagued by
real-life bloodshed, Reuters reported.
Iraq held its first election in 2018 after years of
devastating factional violence. ISIS militants held wide swathes of the country
for three years until they were driven out in heavy fighting with US-backed
forces in 2017.
Lawmakers, who were sworn in last September after months of
disputed results and ballot box recounts, approved a resolution that mandated
the government to bar online access to the games and ban related financial
transactions.
The ban came “due to the negative effects caused by some
electronic games on the health, culture, and security of Iraqi society, including
societal and moral threats to children and youth,” the text of the resolution
read.
Oil-rich Iraq has suffered for decades under the dictatorial
rule of Saddam Hussein and UN sanctions, the 2003 US invasion and civil war it
unleashed, and the battle against ISIS, over which Baghdad declared
victory in 2017.
Corruption is rampant and basic services like power and
water are lacking. Unemployment is widespread, especially among young people.
The new ban quickly drew online discontent with hundreds of
Iraqi social media users criticizing lawmakers for what they said were
misplaced priorities. Parliament has passed only one piece of legislation since
it first convened, the 2019 federal budget law which was issued in January.
PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds (PUBG), made by South Korean
firm Bluehole Inc, is a survival-themed battle game that drops dozens of online
players on an island where they try and eliminate each other.
North Carolina-based Epic Games’ Fortnite, with a similar
premise, is seen as an industry game-changer by analysts as it signed up tens
of millions of users for its last-player-standing “Battle Royale” format.
Both were launched in 2017 and have a huge global following.
Influential Iraqi Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, whose
political coalition won the largest number of seats in parliament, earlier on
Thursday urged Iraqi youth to shun PUBG, calling it addictive. Sadr called on
the government to ban it.
“What will you gain if you killed one or two people in PUBG?
It is not a game for intelligence or a military game that provides you with the
correct way to fight,” he wrote in a two-page statement.