Phantom Parrot | |
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Directed by | Kate Stonehill |
Produced by | Steven Lake |
Cinematography |
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Edited by | Vera Simmonds, Emiliano Battista |
Music by | Nainita Desai |
Production company | Brass Mill Media |
Distributed by | Tribeca Films |
Release date |
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Running time | 89 minutes [2] |
Country | United Kingdom |
Phantom Parrot is a 2023 documentary film that documents the ordeal of Muhammad Rabbani when he is arrested at the UK border. It was directed by Kate Stonehill.
Phantom Parrot tells the story of Muhammad Rabbani, a human rights activist who works with people who have been subject to torture and other human rights violations. [3] Rabbani is stopped at the border and asked for the passwords of his electronic devices. [4] Rabbani refuses to give up his passwords and so is arrested under Schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act 2000. [5] Rabbani is the director of CAGE (organisation), who fight against mass surveillance in the wake of the War on Terror. [6] During the film, we learn that Rabbani's stop may have been targeted, as he had documents on his devices relating to individuals who had been tortured and mistreated by the American government. [7] The film explores how individuals can be arrested and imprisoned simply for protecting data that relates to human rights violations.
The title Phantom Parrot refers to a government programme called Phantom Parrot, that was first discovered in a leaked document by Edward Snowden. The policy allows for targeted stopping of people at the border, under Schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act, to download data from their devices. [8]
Counterterrorism, also known as anti-terrorism, relates to the practices, military tactics, techniques, and strategies that governments, law enforcement, businesses, and intelligence agencies use to combat or eliminate terrorism.
The Canada Border Services Agency is a federal law enforcement agency that is responsible for border control, immigration enforcement, and customs services in Canada.
Turkmenistan's human rights record has been heavily criticized by various countries and scholars worldwide. Standards in education and health declined markedly during the rule of President Saparmurat Niyazov.
Human rights in Turkey are protected by a variety of international law treaties, which take precedence over domestic legislation, according to Article 90 of the 1982 Constitution. The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) was not signed by Turkey until 2000. As of today, however, Turkey is party to 16 out of 18 international human rights treaties of the United Nations. The issue of human rights is of high importance for the negotiations with the European Union (EU).
Political repression is the act of a state entity controlling a citizenry by force for political reasons, particularly for the purpose of restricting or preventing the citizenry's ability to take part in the political life of a society, thereby reducing their standing among their fellow citizens. Repression tactics target the citizenry who are most likely to challenge the political ideology of the state in order for the government to remain in control. In autocracies, the use of political repression is to prevent anti-regime support and mobilization. It is often manifested through policies such as human rights violations, surveillance abuse, police brutality, imprisonment, involuntary settlement, stripping of citizen's rights, lustration, and violent action or terror such as the murder, summary executions, torture, forced disappearance, and other extrajudicial punishment of political activists, dissidents, or general population. Direct repression tactics are those targeting specific actors who become aware of the harm done to them while covert tactics rely on the threat of citizenry being caught. The effectiveness of the tactics differ: covert repression tactics cause dissidents to use less detectable opposition tactics while direct repression allows citizenry to witness and react to the repression. Political repression can also be reinforced by means outside of written policy, such as by public and private media ownership and by self-censorship within the public.
Omar Mahmoud Othman, better known as Abu Qatada al-Filistini, is a Salafi cleric and Jordanian national. Abu Qatada was accused of having links to terrorist organisations and frequently imprisoned in the United Kingdom without formal charges or prosecution before being deported to Jordan, where he was acquitted of multiple terrorism charges.
The Directorate General of Forces Intelligence, commonly known by its acronym DGFI, is the defense intelligence agency of the Bangladesh Armed Forces, tasked with collection, collation and evaluation of strategic and topographic information, primarily through human intelligence (HUMINT). As one of the principal members of the Bangladesh intelligence community, the DGFI reports to the Director-General under the executive authority of the head of government, the Prime Minister, and is primarily focused on providing intelligence for the Prime Minister, the Cabinet of Bangladesh, and the Armed Forces of Bangladesh.
Human rights in Afghanistan under the Taliban regime are severely restricted and considered among the worst in the world. Women's rights and freedom are severely restricted, as they are banned from most public spaces and employment. Afghanistan is the only country in the world to ban education for women over the age of eleven. Taliban's policies towards women are usually termed as gender apartheid. Minority groups such as Hazaras face persecution and eviction from their lands. Authorities have used physical violence, raids, arbitrary arrests and detention, torture, enforced disappearances of activists and political opponents.
Human Rights in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) are substantially restricted. The UAE does not have democratically elected institutions and citizens do not have the right to change their government or form political parties. Activists and academics who criticize the government are detained and imprisoned, and their families are often harassed by the state security apparatus. There are reports of forced disappearances of foreign nationals and Emirati citizens, who have been abducted, detained and tortured in undisclosed locations, and denied the right to a speedy trial and access to counsel during investigations by the UAE government. Human Rights Watch states that Emirati laws maintain capital punishment and discriminate against women, migrants and LGBT individuals.
Human rights in Syria are effectively non-existent. The country's human rights record is considered one of the worst in the world. As a result, Syria has been globally condemned by prominent international organizations, including the United Nations, Human rights Watch, Amnesty International, and the European Union. Civil liberties, political rights, freedom of speech and assembly are severely restricted under the Ba'athist government of Bashar al-Assad, which is regarded as "one of the world's most repressive regimes". The 50th edition of Freedom in the World, the annual report published by Freedom House since 1973, designates Syria as "Worst of the Worst" among the "Not Free" countries. The report lists Syria as one of the two countries to get the lowest possible score (1/100).
Human rights in Greece are observed by various organizations. The country is a signatory to the European Convention on Human Rights, the Geneva Convention relating to the Status of Refugees and the United Nations Convention Against Torture. The Greek constitution also guarantees fundamental human rights to all Greek citizens.
Human rights in Egypt are guaranteed by the Constitution of the Arab Republic of Egypt under the various articles of Chapter 3. The country is also a party to numerous international human rights treaties, including the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. However, the state of human rights in the country has been criticized both in the past and the present, especially by foreign human rights organisations such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch. As of 2022, Human Rights Watch has declared that Egypt's human rights crises under the government of President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi is "one of its worst ... in many decades", and that "tens of thousands of government critics, including journalists, peaceful activists, and human rights defenders, remain imprisoned on abusive 'terrorism' charges, many in lengthy pretrial detention." International human rights organizations, such as the aforementioned HRW and Amnesty International, have alleged that as of January 2020, there are some 60,000 political prisoners in Egypt. Other complaints made are of authorities harassing and detaining "relatives of dissidents abroad" and use of "vague 'morality' charges to prosecute LGBT people, female social media influencers, and survivors of sexual violence." The Egyptian government has frequently rejected such criticism, denying that any of the prisoners it holds are political prisoners.
Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights provides a right to respect for one's "private and family life, his home and his correspondence", subject to certain restrictions that are "in accordance with law" and "necessary in a democratic society". The European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) is an international treaty to protect human rights and fundamental freedoms in Europe.
Indefinite detention is the incarceration of an arrested person by a national government or law enforcement agency for an indefinite amount of time without a trial. The Human Rights Watch considers this practice as violating national and international laws, particularly human rights laws, although it remains in legislation in various liberal democracies.
Cage is a London-based advocacy organisation which aims to empower communities impacted by the War on Terror. Cage highlights and campaigns against state policies, developed as part of the War on Terror. The organisation was formed to raise awareness of the plight of detainees held at Guantánamo Bay and elsewhere and has worked closely with former detainees held by the United States and campaigns on behalf of current detainees held without trial. Cage was formerly known as Cageprisoners, and is ordinarily styled as "CAGE".
Alkarama is an independent Swiss-based human rights non-governmental organization established in 2004 to assist all those in the Arab World subjected to, or at risk of, extrajudicial killings, disappearances, torture, and arbitrary detention. Acting as a bridge between individual victims in the Arab World and international human rights mechanisms, Alkarama works towards an Arab World where all individuals live free, with dignity, and protected by the rule of law.
The Temara interrogation center, also known as Temara secret detention center, is an extrajudicial detainment and secret prison facility of Morocco located within a forested area of Rabat, Morocco. It is operated by the Directorate for the Surveillance of the Territory, a Moroccan domestic intelligence agency implicated in past and ongoing human rights violations, which continues to arrest, detain and interrogate individuals suspected of involvement in terrorism-related activities outside of the Moroccan legal framework.
Bassem Eid is a Palestinian living in East Jerusalem who comments on the Israeli–Palestinian conflict for Israeli TV and radio. He has been invited to speak by many pro-Israeli organizations in North America, including on university campuses.
Amal Khalifa Idris Habani is a Sudanese journalist and human rights activist.
The Information Network Security Administration or INSA is the national signals intelligence and cybersecurity agency of Ethiopia, founded when the Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) was the ruling party of Ethiopia.