The Fort Worth Press - Syrians, Iraqis archive IS jail crimes in virtual museum

USD -
AED 3.673026
AFN 67.499756
ALL 92.000078
AMD 387.51022
ANG 1.803294
AOA 913.502353
ARS 997.7641
AUD 1.53282
AWG 1.8015
AZN 1.698929
BAM 1.842782
BBD 2.020296
BDT 119.572592
BGN 1.842896
BHD 0.376896
BIF 2898
BMD 1
BND 1.339138
BOB 6.938791
BRL 5.749198
BSD 1.000584
BTN 84.49608
BWP 13.612807
BYN 3.274442
BYR 19600
BZD 2.01681
CAD 1.394985
CDF 2868.999783
CHF 0.882585
CLF 0.03573
CLP 985.91001
CNY 7.232599
COP 4436.5
CRC 512.023217
CUC 1
CUP 26.5
CVE 104.35012
CZK 23.922299
DJF 177.720201
DKK 7.028425
DOP 60.25002
DZD 133.442004
EGP 49.2159
ETB 122.050006
EUR 0.942202
FJD 2.26455
GBP 0.785275
GEL 2.739763
GHS 16.414998
GMD 71.504736
GNF 8631.000036
GTQ 7.732172
GYD 209.320293
HKD 7.778095
HNL 25.069979
HTG 131.605231
HUF 387.194997
IDR 15826.3
ILS 3.75608
INR 84.40135
IQD 1308.654
IRR 42104.999785
ISK 138.980053
JMD 158.989193
JOD 0.709098
JPY 154.793983
KES 129.500242
KGS 86.183085
KHR 4054.999874
KMF 460.374996
KRW 1410.255056
KWD 0.307503
KYD 0.833804
KZT 496.541912
LAK 21960.000519
LBP 89599.999816
LKR 292.59008
LRD 185.350115
LSL 18.10905
LTL 2.95274
LVL 0.60489
LYD 4.864965
MAD 9.920983
MDL 17.910448
MGA 4650.000011
MKD 58.007786
MMK 3247.960992
MOP 8.016734
MRU 39.895699
MUR 47.109872
MVR 15.459742
MWK 1735.000238
MXN 20.618255
MYR 4.437982
MZN 63.924998
NAD 18.11003
NGN 1672.680064
NIO 36.770234
NOK 11.088699
NPR 135.193351
NZD 1.689235
OMR 0.385022
PAB 1.000584
PEN 3.789015
PGK 4.01525
PHP 58.757982
PKR 277.950236
PLN 4.101361
PYG 7817.549678
QAR 3.64075
RON 4.688605
RSD 110.230992
RUB 98.248133
RWF 1366
SAR 3.757364
SBD 8.351256
SCR 13.560727
SDG 601.499774
SEK 10.911065
SGD 1.339671
SLE 22.801028
SOS 571.504164
SRD 35.235033
STD 20697.981008
SVC 8.755465
SZL 18.110355
THB 34.909749
TJS 10.635517
TMT 3.5
TND 3.147504
TOP 2.3421
TRY 34.378995
TTD 6.799337
TWD 32.430302
TZS 2661.865001
UAH 41.439986
UGX 3676.692296
UYU 42.184909
UZS 12814.999572
VES 44.873078
VND 25350
XAF 618.080997
XCD 2.70255
XDR 0.753807
XOF 614.999821
XPF 112.649739
YER 249.774997
ZAR 18.119299
ZMK 9001.205799
ZMW 27.24069
ZWL 321.999592
  • RBGPF

    0.0300

    60.22

    +0.05%

  • BCC

    -2.0100

    141.13

    -1.42%

  • NGG

    -1.2400

    62.9

    -1.97%

  • CMSD

    -0.2100

    24.75

    -0.85%

  • JRI

    -0.3000

    13.22

    -2.27%

  • RELX

    -1.2100

    46.59

    -2.6%

  • RIO

    -1.4000

    61.2

    -2.29%

  • SCS

    0.0200

    13.67

    +0.15%

  • CMSC

    -0.1800

    24.54

    -0.73%

  • BCE

    -0.1600

    27.69

    -0.58%

  • GSK

    -0.8300

    35.52

    -2.34%

  • RYCEF

    -0.1700

    7.16

    -2.37%

  • BTI

    0.0900

    35.24

    +0.26%

  • AZN

    0.4000

    65.19

    +0.61%

  • VOD

    -0.8500

    8.47

    -10.04%

  • BP

    -0.7600

    28.16

    -2.7%

Syrians, Iraqis archive IS jail crimes in virtual museum
Syrians, Iraqis archive IS jail crimes in virtual museum / Photo: © AFP

Syrians, Iraqis archive IS jail crimes in virtual museum

After jihadists jailed him in 2014, Iraqi religious scholar Muhammad al-Attar said he would sometimes pull his prison blanket over his head to cry without other detainees noticing.

Text size:

Islamic State group extremists arrested Attar, then 37, at his perfume shop in Mosul in June 2014 after overrunning the Iraqi city, hoping to convince the respected community leader to join them.

But the former preacher refused to pledge allegiance, and they threw him into prison where he was tortured.

In his group cell of at least 148 detainees at Mosul's Ahdath prison, at times "there was nothing left but to weep", Attar said.

But "I couldn't bear the thought of the younger men seeing me cry. They would have broken down."

So he hid under his blanket.

IS, also called ISIS, seized control of large parts of Syria and neighbouring Iraq and declared a so-called caliphate there in 2014, implementing its brutal interpretation of religion on inhabitants.

The militants banned smoking, mandated beards for men and head-to-toe coverings for women, publicly executed homosexuals and cut off the hands of thieves.

They threw perceived informants or "apostates" into prison or makeshift jails, many of whom never returned.

- 'Messages into the future' -

Attar's story is one of more than 500 testimonies that dozens of journalists, filmmakers and human rights activists in Syria and Iraq have collected since 2017 as part of an online archive called the ISIS Prisons Museum.

The website, which includes virtual visits of former jihadist detention centres and numerous tales about life inside them, became public this month.

The project is holding its first physical exhibition, including virtual reality tours, at the Paris headquarters of UNESCO, the UN's culture and education agency, until November 14.

Syrian journalist Amer Matar, 38, is director of the web-based museum.

"IS abducted my brother in 2013, and we started to look for him," he told AFP.

After US-backed forces started to expel jihadists from parts of Syria and Iraq in 2017, "I and my team got the chance to go inside certain former IS prisons," he said.

They found thousands of prison documents from the group whose caliphate was eventually defeated in 2019, but also detainee scratchings on the walls.

Etched inside the football stadium in the Syrian city of Raqa, for example, the team found prisoner names and Koranic verses, as well as lyrics from a 1996 television drama about peace eventually prevailing.

Inside one solitary cell, they discovered exercise instructions to keep fit in English.

Matar says he was detained twice at the start of the Syrian civil war, in a government jail for covering protests against President Bashar al-Assad.

"I too would write my name on the wall because I didn't know if I'd get out or if they'd kill me," he said.

"People usually write their names, cries for help or stories about someone who was killed," he added.

"They're messages into the future so that people can find someone."

- 'Ask us for evidence' -

Matar and his team decided to film the former prison sites and archive all the material within them before they disappeared.

"Many were homes, clinics, government buildings, schools or shops" that people were returning to and starting to repair, said Matar, who is now based in Germany.

They managed to capture 3D footage of around 50 former IS jails and 30 mass graves before they were transformed, he said.

In total they have documented 100 prison sites, interviewed more than 500 survivors and digitised over 70,000 IS documents.

Younes Qays, a 30-year-old journalist from Mosul, was in charge of data collection in Iraq.

"To hear and see the crimes inflicted on my people was really tough," he said, recounting being particularly shocked by the tale of a woman from the Yazidi minority who was raped 11 times in IS captivity.

Robin Yassin-Kassab, the website's English editor, said the project aimed to "gather information and cross-reference it" so it could be used in court.

"We want legal teams around the world to know that we exist so that they can come and ask us for evidence," he said.

Matar has not found his brother.

But within the coming year, he hopes to launch a sister website called Jawab, "Answer" in Arabic, to help others find out what happened to their loved ones.

T.M.Dan--TFWP