Archive for the ‘ISIS Prisons Museum’ Category
The ISIS Legacy in Syria
This was a great discussion the Prisons Museum conducted with Shiraz Maher, author of Salafi-Jihadism: the History of an Idea. On behalf of the Prisons Museum there’s me and Dagmar Hovestadt, our communications manager. Here we discuss whether ISIS has a future, and what the transitional government tells us about jihadism, or post-jihadism, in the 21st Century.
The Hisba Diwan
At the ISIS Prisons Museum you can now read our investigations into the Hisba Diwan, a supposed behaviour police force which the organization imposed on society in eastern Syria and western Iraq. You can also go on virtual 3D tours of Hisba Diwan prisons, watch victim testimony, and more.
The Museum has broadcast a series of webinars on the investigations. The most recent involves my colleagues and I talking with Syrian journalist Hussam Hammoud about surveillance under the Hisba Diwan and its effects on society. Here it is:
A Background of Blood
The ISIS Prisons Museum has produced the most comprehensive study yet of the 2014 Shaitat Massacre, the worst ISIS atrocity in Syria. The focus on the massacre includes witness testimonies, 3D prison tours, investigations into some of the dozens of prisons established in the Shaitat areas, and a detailed report on the killing and mass displacement of the clan and the looting and destruction of its property. The report is by far the most serious treatment yet of the events. It’s written by Sasha and Ayman al-Alo, and can be read here.
ISIS violence didn’t drop from the skies. It emerged from a context of massacres in Syria and Iraq perpetrated by the Assad regime, the Saddam Hussein regime, and various actors in the Iraqi and Syrian civil wars, including US troops and sectarian Shia militias. I have written a text to give this context. It’s called A Background of Blood, and can be read here.
The ISIS Prisons Museum on MEMO
I was interviewed at length on the Middle East Monitor podcast about the ISIS Prisons Museum. I’m really pleased to work with this highly-professional, grassroots Syrian and Iraqi project, which brings together human rights, investigative journalism and cutting-edge technology. I gave the interview before the fall of the Assad regime, so I need to update my words by saying that the IPM is currently hard at work documenting the Assad prisons which have just been liberated. It is also publishing reports on Assad security prisons, and witness accounts of detention under Assad. The IPM will continue to display investigations and reconstructions of ISIS crimes alongside work on Assad prisons.
The ISIS Prisons Museum
I and Amer Matar were interviewed on the BBC media show about the ISIS Prisons Museum, of which Amer is director, and I am chief English editor. Here it is. (This can probably only be seen in the UK, I’m afraid…)
Visit the museum at https://www.isisprisons.museum/
Qunfuz 