Shafaq News- Baghdad
Iraq’s Sunni Endowment has filed a criminal complaint against Shiite religious reciter Faqid al-Mousawi, accusing him of insulting companions of the Prophet Muhammad and one of his wives.
The Endowment’s legal department submitted a CD to Baghdad’s Third Karkh Investigation Court containing clips attributed to al-Mousawi. It alleged that the remarks were intended to inflame sectarian tensions among Iraqis.
The complaint followed the renewed circulation on social media of a video presented by some users as recent and containing chants that sparked sectarian controversy.
Iraqi fact-checking platform Tech 4 Peace said the footage was not new, tracing it to an event on June 15, 2025, after comparing the circulating clip with video from another angle recorded at the same event.
Al-Mousawi also said on his official account that the clips were old and that the matter had previously been addressed before a court. He denied targeting any particular community or social group.
The video also drew criticism from Iraqi activists and social media users, with some describing the chants as sectarian and warning that such rhetoric could revive divisions rooted in Iraq’s past violence. Others defended al-Mousawi’s right to express his religious views.
Sectarian rhetoric remains particularly sensitive in Iraq, where Sunni-Shiite violence surged after the 2003 US-led invasion. Tensions escalated sharply after al-Qaeda-linked militants bombed the Shiite al-Askari shrine in Samarra in February 2006, triggering widespread retaliatory violence and displacement. More than 1.1 million Iraqis were internally displaced during the 2006-2008 sectarian violence, according to the UN Refugee Agency.
Read more: Religion in Iraq: Heritage of civilization or a catalyst for conflict?