documentary filmmaker
TORTURED BY ISIS, IRAQI BROTHER AND SISTER SPEAK OUT
Credit Producer, Reporter, Editor Duration 02:07 mins
Year 2016 Source UNHCR
Location Duhok, Iraq
For nearly three years, the so-called Islamic State controlled a stretch of land that at one point was the size of Britain, with a population estimated at 12 million people. At its peak, it included a 100-mile coastline in Libya, a section of Nigeria’s lawless forests and a city in the Philippines, as well as colonies in at least 13 other countries. By far the largest city under their rule was Mosul.
How did a group whose spectacles of violence galvanized the world against it hold onto so much land for so long?
The militants did not rule by the sword alone. Unlike some other armed groups that are concerned primarily with violence and warfare, IS’s ideology revolved around statecraft and governance of civilians. The use of torture served as a reinforcement of ISIS’ brand of terror, a violent method that scared civilians into submitting to their theological codes.
Zaineb and her brother Haidar were in their early twenties when Mosul, Iraq’s second largest city, fell to the Islamic State. Their father, Ahmed, was a general in the Iraqi forces and the family was immediately targeted. ISIS minders stalked their home. One day, just a few weeks after the city had come under the insurgents’ rule, Ahmed left home never to be seen or heard of again. For two years the family lived in fear. In August 2016, the siblings were abducted from their home by the hisbah –the morality police– and dragged before an ISIS court, accused of breaking theological code. Following a three-day- hearing they were separated and taken to a communal cell in an underground prison.
Throughout their abduction, arrest, interrogation and imprisonment, the pair were subjected to a number of psychological and physical methods of torture. These included the threat of execution, electrocution, lashing, promises to receive similar fates as other tortured fellow detainees and the placement of severed heads in cages in which they were being held.
Eventually, both were cleared of their purported offences and were subjected to conditional release. Their mother paid $1000 and they were let go.
Ali claims he is the sole survivor of the prison, in which 85 men were held.
“Over a period of 18 days, they put electrical wires on my tongue and shocked me, saying it was because I spoke out against them. They would hang me upside down and hit me on the face, back and legs with hoses. It was so painful I asked them to kill me with a bullet. They told me they would not give me this gift, but said that one day I would be executed.”
In another part of the prison, Zaineb, who was accused of being a witch, was forced to watch fellow female inmates being executed. The dark-haired 23-year old speaks softly and sadly. “They beheaded two women in front of me. One of them [was] a female police officer.”
“As for me, I was shocked with electrical wires on my head, nose and on my legs, many times. The pain was unbearable. At night I would go to sleep and I knew I would wake up the next day and be tortured again,” says Zaineb. “Every day, I was sure I would die.”
“I feel like this is not the end, and they will come back for me again,” Zaineb says. “They came to take all that is beautiful from the people of Mosul. How can I forgive them? Impossible."