Fight or
Flight
Postproduction
script
Lower thirds
00:07 Fada and Kaadar
present
00:15 with Ali Al-Kharki (Humat Dijlah)
00:18 Yasmine Falah Qalolos (She Revolution)
00:20 Kamaran Osman (Christian Peacemaker Teams - CPT)
00:22 Nabil Musa (Waterkeerpers Iraq)
00:26 A documentary by Sara Manisera and Davide Lemmi
00:30 Editing by Arianna Pagani
00:33 In October 2019, during the October Revolution (Tishreen), thousands of Iraqi youth took to the streets to demand services, jobs, water, rights and reforms to the political system.
00:41 Peaceful protests were brutally suppressed.
00:43 More than 800 people died and more than 30,000 were injured.
00:47 In addition, there have been forced disappearances and targeted killings of activists, journalists, lawyers, human rights defenders and civilians by armed militias and security forces.
00:55 Several human rights activists have been forced to flee to secret locations.
01:01 Others remain, risking their lives.
01:03 FIGHT OR FLIGHT
1
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I don't believe anymore in October's Revolution
2
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I don't believe in it because they stole it.
3
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The people who were struggling,
4
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either they are assassinated or they left the country.
5
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The only thing that left for me of October
6
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is the songs that we were singing. That's it.
7
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Me and my husband left Iraq because we were threatened,
8
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they gave us an advice
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we didn’t want to take this advice so we just left
to keep ourselves and our family safe.
10
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Everything has changed.
11
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And now that I’m away, there is this sense of “If you love Iraq, why did you leave?”
12
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When I'm walking on the street, I don't feel secure.
13
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I'm always expecting that someone
will beat me behind of me.
14
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One day I would be kidnapped either by the security forces or by Turkey or Iran.
15
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It's not only Kamaran, all the human rights defenders,
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we are living in the fear every day.
17
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The first word that I heard after 2003, I was twelve years-old.
18
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The first word I heard after that moment, it was freedom, hurriyah.
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During October's uprising,
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we were always demanding for freedom to express our ideas and vision.
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We again have been killed because of that.
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I’m Ali Al-Kharki
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I born and lived in Baghdad and then I left Baghdad,
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currently living in Sulaymaniyah.
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After the graduation I joined civil society and we founded an organization,
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it was small at the beginning,
Humat Dijlah Association and now
27
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it has its own network to protect water and
environmental issues around Iraq.
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So this is the tobacco factory
29
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and it’s our alternative place after we left Baghdad.
30
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That’s it, we signed the Paris Agreement.
31
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We are gonna reduce the temperature.
32
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Right now we are in a very critical situation
when it comes to the water crisis
33
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and we want to show how important this river
34
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and this artificial reservoir can be for our community.
35
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And we wanna show our love and our attention to authorities
36
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and people saying we wanna protect this river
37
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because as environmentalists this is our job to remind you
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if this water is no longer swimmable and drinkable and fishable we are in a very bad situation.
39
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Unfortunately being an activist and being someone who is exposed or known it’s a risk, it’s a security risk.
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Security risk is when you fear for yourself and your family.
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It’s the main sad risk that you take when you are an activist in the Iraqi society.
42
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My name is Yasmine Falah and I’m now 26 years-old.
43
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I’m from Baghdad but now I’m based in Istanbul…
and who I am?
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I can define myself as a feminist activist.
45
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Just look how happy we are.
46
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I miss these days.
47
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So we were doing that with love and it’s very hard to be away
48
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and just see people do the things that you loved to do and to continue to do that.
49
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We experienced oppression a lot and our area experienced
50
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a lot of violation and war. Civil war happened in our area.
51
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Iran bombed our area a lot, Turkey bombed our area a lot.
52
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I was thinking we need some resistance and I can,
53
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I can challenge the system and the
system that is oppressing people
54
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so I found out that I have that energy and with the collaboration with other people,
55
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we can hold each other and make some change in our society.
56
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My name is Kamaran Osman
57
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I have worked as a civil activist since 2010 in Iraqi Kurdistan.
58
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CPT is the only organization that advocates for the villagers on the border
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that they are experiencing violence from Turkey and Iran.
60
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When we are visiting the villagers, probably we would be assassinated. We would be kidnapped.
61
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We would be imprisoned.
Who knows?
62
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You cannot even open a window here, it’s so polluted,
63
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we are in this field, so we just took right, from here all is polluted,
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everybody, everybody, look, they melt even cars,
they melt anything you think of
65
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at least we have twenty oil refineries in this area, refining oil
66
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and the waste goes directly into the river.
67
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The problem with this area, our river starts from Sulaymaniyah,
68
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from the beginning of Piramagrun mountain, this beautiful spring water coming down,
69
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we call Sarchnar spring, is coming this way,
70
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we dump all our industrial waste directly without being filtered to this river
71
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and so basically all the pollution we dumped into this river
72
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is going down way directly to Diyalah river and to Tigris.
73
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What does it mean having here a polluted water?
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Basra will be polluted, Maysan, Kut, Baghdad, Diyalah.
75
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How many cities this river will pass they will be affected
and it’s not just affected humans.
76
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Biodiversity. We lost all our fishes, turtles
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euphrates softshell turtles are in danger species,
78
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we have so many in danger species and lost species
79
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and it’s like, who is gonna care about this?
And this is what we are doing here.
80
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We say do you think war is over, Isis is gone,
but this is much more,
81
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this would be much worst than Isis war, Iranian war, Gulf war any wars you name it.
82
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There is a woman who has been forced to marry someone
ten years older than her
83
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so she is asking us,
84
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“do you know any ngo or anyone who can help me?
Can you just please think with me?”
85
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"Please help."
86
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So she is telling us i’m going to kill myself and my daughter.
87
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This is one of the main reason, to hear each other, to talk.
88
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She Revolution started with an idea,
from 2019 we had this idea to have a feminist group
89
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with girls that will be united and will start thinking what to do to help Iraqi women.
90
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When we started we were a group of girls who already worked on the feminism issue
91
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but now we are attracting more girls than ever.
92
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We try to be a platform where every woman can be part of and represent every girl, that’s our aim.
93
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It was an hospital that was bombed last year
94
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that hospital was providing medical support for three villages and it’s a remote area,
95
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people have to drive more than two hours to get medical support.
96
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Actually last month Turkey conducted 28 airstrikes only in half hour in this area,
97
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it’s very difficult to live here because you are hearing the sound of the drones,
98
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most of the days and you are expecting to be bombed in every moment,
99
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you don’t know when you will be bombed.
100
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One day he was coming back to his family house and
101
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Turkish drones were following the PKK car where there were some injured guerrillas inside.
102
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They didn’t bomb the car until the PKK guerrilla car reached the car of Mamosta Muhamad
103
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so when the car, the PKK guerrilla car, reached the car of Mamosta Muhamad, they bombed it.
104
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And in that incident Mamosta Muhamad lost his father, lost his sister and also lost his brother.
105
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We are advocating for the villagers
that they have been impacted
106
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by the crossborder bombing, Iranian
and Turkish crossborder bombing.
107
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We are advocating for their rights.
108
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We are trying to amplify their voices, documenting,
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what's happening because the documentation
is very very important
110
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to make some change in the future and use it in the future.
111
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The first thing that I feel is powerless, that we can’t immediately change the situation.
112
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But at the same time, I'm feeling proud that I am a part of a big group that advocates for these people.
113
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It's not my own responsibility as a person.
It's a national responsibility.
114
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But at least me and my colleagues also, I'm not alone in this,
115
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but all the network of Humat Dijlah, of water protectors around Iraq.
116
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We have the same concern. We are sharing the same idea regarding to this fight.
117
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Water war means for us as activists and Iraqi citizens,
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we need to ensure the food and water security firstly,
119
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and we want also to avoid the country
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passing through another war,
even if it's a different kind of war.
121
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Enough wars, enough conflict in this region
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and Iraqis want to live after all they have passed through.
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Knowing that you can’t go home is hard because when you don’t want to go
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it’s your option, but you can’t go..it’s really hard.
125
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I miss everything about Baghdad.
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I miss food, I miss the street food a lot.
127
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I miss walking with my friends there.
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Here in Turkey, in Istanbul, I know a lot,
a lot of young men and women
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they are here because of the threats that they got,
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the restrictions that came above them because they couldn’t move…
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or they have been forced to leave.
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The Badinan prisoners are civil activists and journalists,
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they were exposing corruption and criticizing the government
134
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and organizing demonstrations in their areas.
135
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So it was the main reason.. this is the demonstration..
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But the government says they were plotting for sabotage and they were conducting espionage.
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Today, arm in arm with the activists of Kurdistan Region and the families of prisoners in Badinan
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we ask for justice towards the activists and journalists imprisoned.
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We ask from the courts that they assure providing justice and not become tools for depressing freedom of speech
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Destroy corruption!
Long live resistance in prison!
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Destroy corruption!
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Long live resistance of Badinan prisoners!
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Long live resistance of Badinan prisoners!
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Freedom! Freedom!
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Freedom for me, I think as a human being is living without the fear of being judged,
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without the fear of being imprisoned or arrested, without the fear of being killed.
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We should continue. We should not give up.
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I will continue. It doesn't matter how
much risk we are experiencing.
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We don’t have to lose our life just to make the change
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maybe we are here to make the change, Inchallah.
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Freedom is what we are looking for.
Freedom and rights.
with Ali Al-Kharki (Humat Dijlah)
Yasmine Falah Qalolos (She Revolution)
Kamaran Osman (Christian Peacemaker Teams - CPT)
Nabil Musa (Waterkeerpers Iraq)
Thanks to Un Ponte Per, FAI, Dutch Cooperation
A documentary by Sara Manisera, Davide Lemmi, Arianna Pagani
To all the activists, human rights defenders and civilians we met.
To those who ran away, to those who stayed.
To those who disappeared.
In memory of Arshad Heibat Fakhry