Hilla, Iraq - The last alcohol vendor in Iraq's Babylon province, a member of the ancient Yazidi religious sect, has been arrested, his family told AFP on Thursday.
"My uncle Murad Sardar, 45, was arrested on Monday by the police... and we have not seen him since," said nephew Firas, 25.
Murad's son Fawaz said plain-clothes police came to their house and told his father to accompany them, saying they were "obliged to intervene because the neighbours complained of screaming and fights between customers."
His family said Murad Sardar was the last person in Babylon province to sell alcohol, despite threats against him.
The provincial council decided to ban the sale of alcohol two and a half years ago, but a spokesman said on Thursday he was "not aware of the arrest, nor of any complaints."
Firas Sardar said that only two Yazidi families remained in Hilla, capital of Babylon province, 95 kilometres (60 miles) south of Baghdad -- his father's and his uncle's, and that both had sold alcohol for 40 years.
"We were forbidden from selling alcohol publicly and started selling from home," he added.
Until the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003, the Sardars, like other minority communities including the Christians, had been allowed to sell alcohol. But all that changed with the rise of Islamist militias and parties.
Iraq's Yazidis, who number around 220,000, follow a pre-Islamic religion and have their own traditions.
The community tried to remain aloof from the vicious sectarian and political conflict that gripped much of Iraq after Saddam's fall, but in 2007 relations with Sunni Muslim communities worsened dramatically.