Iraqi Military Beard Ban Stirs Religion Debate

Reuters ? An Iraqi government decree banning soldiers and police from wearing beards on duty has revived a debate over religious practices in a country where sectarian divisions between Shi?ite and Sunni still fester close to the surface.

Iraq has long allowed police and soldiers to wear beards to a certain length, but in April the interior ministry began ordering that they must be clean-shaven in the name of the ?public interest?.

Wearing a beard is seen in many parts of the Muslim world as a sign of piety or a symbol of radical Islamism, depending on its style. In Iraq, beards are sometimes ?

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