Iraq has long allowed soldiers and policemen to wear beards, although it has restricted their length. But in April, it announced a policy requiring clean-shaven men in the “public interest,” which was not further explained.
Abu Haider, a mechanic with the police, told Reuters, “It is interference in the personal freedoms we started to taste after the toppling of the regime [of Saddam Hussein].”
But Hamid Mutlaq, a parliamentarian elected on the slate of the Sunni-backed Iraqiya Bloc, supported the new rule. “Having a beard can give the impression that security forces are connected to a religious party or have political leanings, and we don’t want that for our security men,” he said.
A group of military officers have sent a complaint to the government, arguing that their personal freedoms are being violated by the new order.
“Why such restrictions?” asked policeman Hadi Ghali Awad. “Having a beard doesn’t harm anyone. “It is also part of our individual freedoms, as well as our Islamic teachings.”