TV series to showcase life of women under Islamic State
They are mothers, daughters, wives -- and suicide bombers: an Arab television drama timed for the Muslim holy month of Ramadan tells the untold stories of women and the Islamic State group.
Inspired by true events, “Black Crows” airs over Ramadan -- prime time for television viewers in the Arab world -- which starts this weekend, and it is the first television series depicting life under IS rule in Syria and Iraq.
Produced by Saudi Arabia’s MBC Group, the series focuses on the stories of the women who volunteer with or are forced to join the jihadist group and “the fear that shapes” their relationships.
“We wanted to tell real stories that would both touch people and reflect the ugly reality of terrorism,” MBC spokesman Mazen Hayek told AFP at the network’s Dubai headquarters.
“We realised that the Arab media could no longer sit and watch while terrorist groups used media as a central part of their war.”
One episode features a girl and her grandmother, both in the niqab Muslim veil, selling dinner plates decorated with pictures of animals in an IS-controlled village in order to survive. A group of armed women from the Hesba, the extremists’ female police unit, order them to pack their goods on the grounds that the animal designs were “haram”, or forbidden in Islam.
But the grandmother refuses to yield to Hesba’s authority, saying she would rather break her plates. She is shot in the head by a member of the Hesba. AFP