Woman Hides Camera to Reveal Life Under Islamic State Rule
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Version 0 of 1. Before an American-led coalition launched airstrikes on Islamic State militants in the Syrian city of Raqqa this week, a female student there documented life under Islamist rule by concealing a video camera in the folds of the full-length cloak she has been compelled to wear since the fundamentalists seized control. Her footage, which was obtained by French television, shows armed militants roaming the streets, reprimanding women whose faces are even partly visible. “God loves covered women,” one militant explains to the student. The woman’s identity was concealed by France 2, the French state broadcaster, in a report that was posted on Facebook. France 24, a satellite channel, also manipulated the audio to obscure all of the voices in the footage for an English-language version of the report broadcast this week. While many local residents chafe under the restrictions imposed by the militants, Muslim fundamentalists from other countries, including France, have made their way to Syria in recent months, attracted by the vision of a new state based on a strict interpretation of Islamic law. Some of the hidden-camera footage was recorded at an Internet cafe in Raqqa as French women chatted with family members back home. “I’m not planning to come back, Mama,” says one woman seated at a computer. “You have to get it into your head that I’m not coming back. I didn’t take the risk of coming here just so I could come back to France.” “I don’t want to come back, Mama, because I’m happy here,” she explains. “Everything you see on TV is fake, I swear to you, it’s not true. Do you understand? They exaggerate everything on TV.” |