Hebbel am Ufer (HAU) Theatre
Hebbel am Ufer (HAU) Theatre, Berlin, Germany Understanding Prison. MENA Prison Forum in Berlin #2 IPM team members and former prisoners will present the museum’s content in relation to two prisons in Syria: the Rumaila Prison in Raqqa, an ISIS prison, and the Khatib Branch Prison in Damascus, an Assad regime prison. The presentation of […]
Three walls: Spatial narratives of Old Mosul
This exhibition explores the spatial narratives of Old Mosul by reconstructing its architecture and revealing how ISIS transformed the area into a vast prison.
Hebbel am Ufer (HAU) Theatre
Feb 25 - 25, 2025
Hebbel am Ufer (HAU) Theatre, Berlin, Germany
Understanding Prison. MENA Prison Forum in Berlin #2
IPM team members and former prisoners will present the museum’s content in relation to two prisons in Syria: the Rumaila Prison in Raqqa, an ISIS prison, and the Khatib Branch Prison in Damascus, an Assad regime prison.
The presentation of site documentation, 3D tours and crime scene reconstruction will be supported by first-hand testimony by two former prisoners: Talal al-Shuweimi, who spent time in Rumaila Prison during ISIS rule and Anwar al-Bunni, a prominent human rights lawyer who was imprisoned for five years from 2006 to 2011, and spent some time in the Khatib Branch in the 1980s.
Anwar al-Bunni was instrumental in gathering witness testimony for the Koblenz trial which convicted Anwar Raslan. This was the first ever successful trial of an Assad regime criminal.
In the second part of the event the director of the Berlin-based NGO European Centre for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR) will discuss legal approaches to human rights violations in prisons. He will report on his experiences to address violations committed under US rule in Iraq in the Abu Ghraib prison and evaluate future attempts for accountability for the crimes under the Syrian dictatorship.
The event is a cooperation between HAU Hebbel am Ufer, medico international, MENA Prison Forum, UMAM D&R, the Prisons Museum, and the ECCHR.
The MENA Prison Forum is dedicated to researching prison culture in the MENA region. The interdisciplinary, international network includes former prisoners, filmmakers, academics and activists from various countries. Together with medico international and HAU, the organisers are presenting parts of their work as a series of events at HAU during the winter of 2024/25.