Southern Iraq bridge sees rare streak of romance with love lock, officials offended

Dhi Qar (IraqiNews.com) A bridge inaugurated in a southern Iraqi province in 2016 is becoming the country’s first to copy European “love bridges”, with an anonymous lover placing a “love lock” on its metal rail.

A photo published by Aljournal News showed a love lock bearing lovers’ initials in English chained to the metal rails of the Bridge of Civilizations in the southern Iraqi province of Dhi Qar.

The romantic tradition had been popular among loving tourists and locals across several world countries, most famously the Pont des Arts in Paris, which cross over the River Seine. It has been the tradition for many loving couples to chain a padlock to the bridge and through its key in the river as a spiritual ensurance of an eternal bond.

But it seems the first romantic fad did not appeal to officials in Nasseriya, Dhi Qar, where the bridge is located. The city’s mayor, Abdul-Nasser Ghaleb, told Aljournal News that such habits “damage the city’s streets and turn then into a big trash can”. He said that “lovers do not stop at placing the locks, but tarnish parts of the bridge with inscriptions, giving it a bad appearance and making it in need for maintenance”.

Kadhim al-Obeidi, a civil society activist, agreed. “This exotic phenomenon, which was imported from France, does not suit us as an Islamic society. The beautiful bridge was deformed by one lover, so what happens if his action exacerbate and more lovers show up?,” he told the website. “Love is at the heart, and not in locks”.

Paris authorities had removed hundreds of thousands of love locks from the Pont des Arts in June 2015 after they gave extra weight to the bridge and caused parts of it to collapse a year earlier.