Source: Kuwait Times
Iraq is no stranger to battles, but this is not one fought with rifles and rockets: when the bell sounds, trainers release cocks Daqduqa and Sammam into the ring. The crowd, scattered across the makeshift stands in a dank Baghdad house, erupts into cheers, baying for blood. Welcome to cockfighting in Iraq. The matches, illegal in Iraq but still widespread, consistently see dozens of men attend, some of whom come to gamble, though many come just for the entertainment. “I have been coming here for five years, at least once a month,” said Ahmed Jabbar, alluding to the fact that even through the capital’s brutal violence in 2007 and 2008, he was a regular.
“I never put down money, I just watch-this is my favorite sport, more than football or anything on television,” said the 43-year-old plumber. In the small house with a metal roof in west Baghdad, organizers hold cockfights most days from 5:00 pm to 11:00 pm, though matches are held in the morning on Fridays, the Muslim day of prayer. There are no matches from June through October, though, because of Baghdad’s boiling temperatures. The “arena”, comprised of a circular ring around three meters (10 feet) in diameter, is covered in red carpet and surrounded by tiered seating.
A large poster hanging on one of the walls outlines the rules: each fight consists of eight rounds of 13 minutes, with two-minute breaks between rounds, totaling nearly two hours. A rooster is considered to have lost if it concedes three consecutive rounds, with a win being tallied if one cock holds the other’s neck to the ground for a full minute. Each bird’s owner can forfeit a match by pulling his cockerel out if he fears for its life. And with the competitive juices flowing, the stakes can be high. In a country where the World Bank puts annual income per capita at $2,340, and unemployment at 17.5 percent, a rooster can cost as much as $8,000 and hundreds of dollars change hands in daily betting, even though gambling is considered un-Islamic.
‘Cockfighting brings people together.’
Categories: Crime, Entertainment, Interesting Facts, Iraq, Media and Culture
This. is. disturbing.