Shafaq News- Baghdad
Iraqi law contains no explicit criminal provision banning the sale of pork itself, although disguising it as another type of meat can constitute commercial fraud, legal expert Habib Al-Quraishi told Shafaq News on Thursday after a butcher was arrested in Najaf over alleged sales of wild-boar meat.
Al-Quraishi said Iraq’s food and meat regulations prohibit the sale of adulterated, unsafe, improperly handled, or falsely labeled products, while Revolutionary Command Council Decision No. 146 of 1998 does not expressly mention pork. He also cited 1988 instructions regulating pig farming, saying he was unaware of any explicit post-2003 legislation repealing them.
On September 9, a security source told Shafaq News that an intelligence team detained a butcher after he allegedly hunted wild boars in the Al-Hurriya marsh in Kufa district and sold the meat to customers in central Najaf as minced meat.
Muqtada Al-Sadr, leader of the Patriotic Shiite Movement, called on Thursday for stricter inspections of markets, restaurants, butcher shops, and food products in Najaf after the case, warning that he would “do what [he] must” if authorities failed to respond.
— مقتدى السيد محمد الصدر (@Mu_AlSadr) September 10, 2026