Abu Nuwas Park – Baghdad lovers’ paradise
BAGHDAD / IraqiNews.com: Ali Tawfiq was billing and cooing over his cell phone to his beloved girl, telling her their next date will be in the Abu Nuwas Park. “Perhaps Abu Nuwas is the sole secure place where lovers will not have their pockets sucked dry like other places,” Tawfiq, 20, told IraqiNews.com news agency. “The arrangements and aesthetic features characterizing the park and the tight security measures that prevented any attacks targeting the park goers were found encouraging by many lovers,” he said. Asaad Hassan, a university student, said he has seen dozens of young boys and girls come regularly to the green spot to sit together without any disturbances. “Lovers touching hands and kissing has become a normal scene particularly after a long period of repression suffered by young Iraqis. The most beautiful thing about the park is that the security authorities are not annoying young couples,” Hassan said. The Iraqi government had several months ago held a large ceremony to re-open Abu Nuwas street, one of the oldest in Baghdad, overlooking the River Tigris in the central part of the city. It had been closed since the invasion of Iraq in March 2003. The street, off the heavily-fortified green zone, where the U.S. and British embassies as well as the Iraqi government departments and parliament are located, was named after the famous talented Arabian poet al-Hassan Ibn Hanie (750-810 AD). Ibn Hanie, better known as Abu Nuwas, was born in the city of Ahvaz in Persia, of Arab and Persian descent. He became a master of all the contemporary genres of Arabic poetry. Haneen Qaddo, a member of the Iraqi parliament’s human rights committee, said there should be no problem devising fresh atmospheres for Iraqis to enjoy personal freedoms like the case with Abu Nuwas Park. “We have to build a culture of respecting people’s privacies and freedoms,” Qaddo told IraqiNews.com, calling on the Iraqi government and security authorities to back this culture as long as it does not clash with social norms. Col. Hisham al-Shimari, the al-Masbah neighborhood police chief, said his department has set up several checkpoints all around the park and operated foot patrols inside to guarantee visitors’ safety. AmR (S)/SR 2