When the Islamic State (ISIS) took control of Mosul in June 2014, one of its first actions was the destruction of the statue of Othman al Mosuli, one of the most distinguished poets and musicians of the Iraqi city. For the radicals, the musical legacy of that city that gave rise to such famous figures as Othman or Ziryab, the virtuoso who introduced the oud (the Arab lute) to Europe in the 9th century, had to be eradicated.
Therefore, last Wednesday, the concert of the renowned Iraqi artist and oud master Naseer al Shamma began with one of the most emblematic songs of Othman al Mosuli: The Mother of Black Eyes.
For Amer Matar, the inclusion of Al Shamma and the more traditional melodies of Mosul in the Virtual Prisons of the Islamic State (IPM) project aims to recover "the true spirit of Mosul," and demonstrate, as emphasized by his team member, architect Zain Hajahjah, that the culture of that city "was devastated but not defeated."
"ISIS hated music. They imprisoned and tortured many musicians. This is our small tribute to Mosul and its musicians," added Matar.
The implementation of the IPM project is one of the most unique initiatives taken in recent years to document war crimes. An effort that has brought together over a hundred lawyers, journalists, human rights activists, as well as architects and experts in 3D filming who aim to establish a virtual museum that allows visitors to explore the prison system established by ISIS in Iraq and Syria between 2014 and 2017.
"It is a space that uses the latest digital technologies to showcase forensic investigations into the atrocities committed by ISIS," explains Zain Hajahjah.
The origin of this initiative lies in the search initiated by Amer Matar in 2013 to try to find out the fate of his brother, a photographer from the Syrian city of Raqqa, who - he says - was kidnapped by the fundamentalists in August of that year.
Matar, exiled in Germany since 2012, returned to Syria after the collapse of the extremists and, while investigating the whereabouts of his brother, discovered the vast network of prisons established by the jihadist organization.
"I understood that every wall and every name of the prisoners marked on the walls were part of our history. Many were homes that were being reclaimed by their owners, to be renovated, and all that legacy was going to be lost," explained the cameraman, now turned director of IPM.
From that moment, at the end of 2017, Matar began to contact various groups of activists in both his native country and Iraq to film with 3D cameras the different locations used as prisons by ISIS.
"At the same time, we found over 70,000 official ISIS documents detailing the operation of their prison system. They listed names of prisoners, jailers, etc. ISIS was like the Stasi (the secret police of former communist East Germany). They documented everything they did," adds the head of IPM.
The exhibition, which opened last Wednesday at the UNESCO headquarters in Paris - the event that followed Naseer al Shamma's concert - presented the recreation of two of the prisons used by extremists in Mosul: the Syriac Christian church in the old city and Meydan, one of the private residences also used for this purpose.
The organizers have not only relied on 3D recordings - which allow exhibition visitors to enter the building using a specific viewer - but have also reproduced all the details of these structures thanks to the testimony of dozens of former prisoners, whose statements are also included in the visual narrative.
Muhammad Abed Saleh, for example, explains how he was arrested in 2016 for simply selling cigarettes. Smoking was prohibited under ISIS's messianic ideology. He was brutally tortured in Meydan and ended up being publicly crucified. Upon returning home, he was so desperate that he jumped from the roof and, defying all logic, far from finding death, he managed to escape from the compound.
"I will never forget the testimony of that nurse who, after working for more than 14 hours at the Raqqa hospital, finished her shift. She went out to the hospital door to wait for the bus to take her home. She was exhausted and allowed herself to smoke a cigarette when she saw the bus approaching. She was wrong. It was a van of ISIS militants. She was kidnapped right there. They tortured her in such a way that she miscarried. She had been trying to get pregnant for 10 years," recounts Robin Yassin, another member of the IPM team.
The so-called "immersive space" - equipped with 3D goggles - allows viewers to see how the buildings were before the ISIS invasion, but also appreciate the most macabre details: the type of torture applied, the location of each cell, and the number of prisoners crammed into them, in a representation that, despite having a certain video game feel, does not allow one to escape the terror it recalls.
The team of this virtual museum not only focuses its efforts on preserving the memory of ISIS's bloody rule. They have already begun to collaborate with European courts to provide evidence in cases such as the one ongoing in Germany against a member of that group for his involvement in the massacres of the Al Shaitat tribe, which left hundreds of bodies in three towns in eastern Syria in the summer of 2014.
"Last October, we were asked to reproduce three buildings that were used as prisons in that region," comments Zain Hajahjah. "We have compiled the names of over 10,000 prisoners who passed through their prisons. Our next project will be to establish a database with those who are still missing," Matar indicates.
This idea, which already has a name, Jawab (response, in Arabic), faces a monumental challenge: "In Raqqa alone, there are over 110 mass graves," admits Matar.