The story quickly began to go viral, racking up hundreds of shares on social media. Soon thereafter, however, journalists with contacts in Iraq began reporting that the story didnt hold up. My contacts in #Mosul have NOT heard that Islamic State ordered FGM for all females in their city, Jenan Moussa, a reporter with Al Anan TV tweet out. Iraqi contacts say #Mosul story is fake, echoed freelance writer Shaista Aziz, adding: Iraqi contact on #FGM story: ISIS are responsible for many horrors, this story is fake and plays to western audience emotions.
NPRs Cairo bureau chief also claimed that the story was false, tweeting #UN statement that #ISIS issued fatwa calling 4 FGM 4 girls is false residents of Mosul say including a doctor, journalist and tribal leader. Not long after a version of a document in Arabic, bearing the black logo that ISIS has adopted, began circulating on Twitter. The document, those who shared it said, is a hoax and the basis for the United Nations claim.
As one analyst who looked at the document told the Independent, the issuing of such an edict would be a huge shift for ISIS, which has held territory in Syria for months without demanding that FGM take place. The practice tends to be based more on culture, Shiraz Maher, a Senior Fellow at Kings College London, said and not something jihadists have ever really taken up or spoken about. ThinkProgress reached out to the United Nations for comment on the discrepancy, but did not receive a response as of press time.
The traction that this story seemed to quickly gain is easy to understand given ISIS previous actions in the territory it controls. Along with reports of civilian executions, massacring Shiites, and enforcing a strict adherence to their interpretation of Islamic law, ISIS has even resurrected the practice of crucifixion in Syria. But for now it appears that female cutting is one atrocity that ISIS has yet to order.
http://thinkprogress.org/world/2014...t-ordering-female-genital-mutilation-in-iraq/
