> Back |
Date: March 1996
Location: Iraq, Turkey, Ukraine, Slovakia, Germany, Holland, Britain
Distributor: BBC1 Inside Story & world-wide – 65 min.
Credits: directed and filmed by Claudio von Planta
Reporter: Karzan Sherabayani / Producer: Alex Moody / Editor: Malcom Daniels
KARZAN’S BROTHERS – ESCAPE FROM THE SAFE HAVEN is a BBC1 investigation into the smuggling of illegal Kurdish immigrants from Iraq to Britain.
The main protagonist is Karzan Sherabayani, a Kurd who lives in exile in the UK. His family asked him to help them escape from the so called ‘Safe Haven’ in Northern Iraq where they lived in unbearable economic circumstances and under constant threat of a new invasion by Saddam Hussein’s Army.
Karzan doesn’t believe that escaping to Europe will improve the fate of the Kurds. But he couldn’t refuse the request of his four brothers. So he decided to publicize their story and raise awareness about the Kurdish plight in general.
I knew Karzan as a friend and jumped at this unique opportunity to capture, as an insider, the murky world of human trafficking. I equipped Karzan with secret cameras and followed his perilous journey over eight months.
The risks were enormous. Temporarily all of us ended up in prison. But Karzan’s brothers never regretted putting their lives on the line. They saw it as a necessity to escape living in hell.
Karzan believes that the exodus of Kurds to Western Europe can only be stopped with the creation of an independent Kurdish state. I tend to agree.
With a population of over 30 million people and a distinct culture it’s understandable that the Kurds aspire to form their own independent state. But after the end of the first World War and the collapse of the Ottoman Empire the Allies divided the Kurdish land between Turkey, Syria, Iraq and Iran. It’s one of these typical colonial mistakes that lead to continuous wars with no end in site as long as the Kurds are not allowed to run their own show.
Posted by Claudio von Planta on 11.18.1996 at 3:11 pm// Tagged: // Have your say »
BLOOD ON THE STONE
BY ANY MEANS (2)
COMMANDO CHAPLAINS
GUNS FOR HIRE - AFGHANISTAN
GUNS FOR HIRE - CONGO DRC
HULL FREEDOM TRAIL
KARZAN'S BROTHERS
LIVING WITH AIDS
LONG WAY DOWN
LONG WAY ROUND
NEIL'S EXCELLENT ADVENTURE
PAKISTAN ON THE TIGHTROPE
RACING GREEN
RAPE TRADE
REBELS OF THE FORGOTTEN WORLD
RWANDA-17 Healing a Nation
SADDAM'S LEGACY
SADDAM'S SECRET TIME BOMB
SPELL OF THE ALBINO
SURVIVING SUDAN
THE CUBA CONNECTION
THE ORGAN TRADERS
THE PEOPLE SMUGGLERS
THE SAUDI TAPES
THE THIN BLUE LINE
Copyright © Von Planta Productions | Web developement by StarGrange from an interface design by Jonathan Richards
Subscribe: Full RSS + Comments RSS
Leave a Comments »
Trackback | RSS 2.0
no comments yet - be the first?