Last week Kamaran Najm was an anonymous local photographer going about his life in Sulaimaniya, in Iraqi Kurdistan. But one kiss changed all that.
Najm, 31, caused a storm of controversy this week when he posted a picture of himself and his girlfriend kissing in Azadi park, near the city centre, on the plinth of a recently vandalised statue.
The kiss was a protest against a spate of vandalism in Suli, as it is affectionately known by locals, which culminated in the destruction of sculptor Zaher Sidq's 2009 Statue of Love – which shows a man and woman embracing – in the park.
"I was in the park with some friends, it was just a normal gathering, and I asked my girlfriend to climb up on the statue. I just turned to her and we looked at each other, and then we kissed," he said.
"Of course, we knew it wasn't just a normal kiss between boyfriend and girlfriend. It was a protest against the people who destroyed the statue."
A friend took a picture of Najm and his Dutch girlfriend – whose name the couple are not revealing due to security concerns – which Najm published on his Facebook page with a simple caption: "No comment."
Then, he says, the backlash started. "The first three hours it was mainly media outlets calling me. I had no idea that this was the first public kiss in Azadi park," he said.
Although the couple were protesting against the recent acts of vandalism, which have included an attack on the grave of famed Kurdish romantic poet Sherko Bekas, not everyone got the picture.
Kurdistan's two major Islamic groups both spoke out in condemnation, believing that the couple had set out to offend Islamic sensibilities.
"Everyone should be against the kiss. It's an effort to disorientate Kurdish Muslim youths," Muhammad Hakim, a spokesman for the Kurdistan Islamic Group was quoted as saying by Kurdish online news site Bas News.
The authorities seem to agree, with local media reporting this week that the general prosecutor for the Kurdistan region is pursuing a lawsuit against Najm for "behaving or performing an act out of the accepted social and cultural norms".
The news that Najm could be charged has led to a spate of copycat pictures on Facebook, but he says he has not had time to pay much attention to them.
"I've been told couples both inside and outside Kurdistan have been taking pictures of themselves kissing and putting it on Facebook. I am told it is about 10 or 11 couples now," he said.
But he also admits that his personal life – and not just calls from angry family members – has been keeping him busy.
"I've been saying my girlfriend, but I should say my fiancee now," he says, proudly. "With the photograph out there, we just decided it was time."
