September 19, 2006
Mobile phones used to text threats in Iraq
Modern cellphones may be convenient, but many Iraqis are abandoning them because they bear nothing but bad news. Aws al-Timimi is an IWPR contributor in Baghdad. He reports for Spero News in one of the most poignant accounts' related to cell phones I've ever read. It's "killing the messenger bearing bad news" all over again, but this time, the bearer is new technology.
"Mobile phones, for many years a forbidden object of desire for Iraqis, are beginning to lose some of their lustre, as getting a call rarely means good news.
The insurgents send text messages to warn people to quit their jobs, while kidnappers ring up to deliver their ransom demands.
Hassan Hashim, a 40-year-old salesman in Baghdad, bought mobiles for his entire family as soon as they became available in Iraq. But after spending days on the phone negotiating with criminals for the release of his brother, kidnapped five months ago, he now loathes the things.
Hashim paid the kidnappers 15,000 US dollars to get his brother back, only to receive yet another call to say his dead body had been found. The family have since given up their phones.
"These phones don’t bring us anything good,” said Hashim. “I used to survive without a cell phone, and I felt safe because the landlines were heavily monitored. Now anyone can use the phone to commit crime and deception".
Iraq was the last country in the Middle East to get a mobile phone network. In Saddam Hussein’s time, only landlines were allowed, and international calls went through state-controlled operators to make it easier for the government to monitor conversations.
Cellular services started in January 2004 with a limited number of connections. Back then, people were ready to pay up to 1,000 dollars for a sought-after SIM card, which even at that price was still preferable to an expensive satellite phone, the only reliable way of calling abroad at the time.
Mobile handsets were expensive, with the cheapest costing 120 dollars, a lot of money in a country where monthly salaries average between 200 and 350 dollars.
Competition eventually brought prices down, and handsets are now available for 40 dollars , but despite this, a growing number of Iraqis are abandoning mobiles and going back to the old-fashioned landlines.
The falling demand is due to their widespread use of mobile technology by kidnappers and blackmailers.
... To avoid threats, some Iraqis will only take calls from numbers they recognise.
Others will not use their phones at all, because looking at them brings up sad memories of relatives and friends who have been killed."
Related:
-- In Iraq, having the wrong ringtone can get you killed
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