Stacey on the frontline review

Stacey on the frontline: Girls, guns and ISIS documentary review

Stacey on the frontline: Girls, guns and ISIS is a documentary following Stacey Dooley as she travels to Northern Iraq for 2 weeks to experience the life of the female soldiers that fight on the frontline against ISIS. At the start of the show she visits a training camp to meet up and talk to some of the girls about their experiences and finds out many were actually once held captive by ISIS. After experiencing the living conditions and everyday routines before traveling to another training camp a bit closer to the front line. The next training camp is near a city where some of the girls used to live before it was destroyed by ISIS and lots of people were killed including women and children. Some of the soldiers open up to Stacey about the terrible conditions inside the ISIS camps and a few of them get emotional and have to leave. Towards the end of the documentary Stacey travels to the frontline and gets to experience first hand what it is like to get shot at and being in the hostile environment.

This documentary shows representations of: Gender, religion and issues. Gender is a key theme in this because the women are being allowed to go and fight alongside the rest of the army as equals which would definitely not be allowed on the other side in the ISIS camps where they actually torture and kill women and children for no real reason at all. Religion is also significant as the documentary is around ISIS who have taken the peaceful Islamic religion and have twisted it and now carry out world wide terror attacks and kill hundreds of thousands of people, this leads on to the last representation which is issues. The attacks all over the world have caused the world to live in fear of the terrorist group. The issue and threat of terrorists has been around for years but as technology improves the attacks become more and more extreme and frightening.  

I think the main target audience for this documentary is people who are interested in the ongoing war with ISIS and the people who are fighting them including the Iraqi women in the documentary, I suppose it could also be of interest to women as the women in the documentary are fighting alongside the men who live alongside them which is usually not the case in most cultures especially ISIS . Although you can only see one sides perspective, this documentary still gives an accurate representation of the issues in Iraq as Stacey Dooley gives a first person perspective in several different camps and bases with lots of different people who share their experiences with her.

I think the documentary was really good as it gave lots of background information and a first hand account of the battle in Iraq as well as talking to the soldiers and their families to explain how bad the conditions really are in Iraq.

Weekly News #17

Weekly News #17
Source: BBC News

Fine firms for sexist dress rules, say's MP

MP's say that the government must enforce the law to ban sexist dress rules at work that discriminate against women. This follows the experience of receptionist Nicola Thorpe who was sent home from work in 2015 for not wearing high heels, she then set up a petition and got over 150,000 signatures. MP's have also heard from other women that they have been told to wear shorter skirts and to unbutton their blouse. The report has called for the Equality Act 2010 to ban discriminatory dress codes at work.

It is clear that business owners tell their female employee's to do this to get more sales from men who will turn their attention to the women who are being exposed. This is representation of gender and issues because business owners are taking advantage of women in order to make more money which is morally wrong. I think that these new rules should be added to the Equality Act 2010 because the issues need to be resolved.

Documentary review

Documentary review

Firstly I watched a documentary called suicide and me by Professor Green. This was part of a mental health campaign that was being run by the BBC at the time. He speaks about his own experience of when his dad committed suicide. He goes on to talk about the grief and confusion that follows. He goes on a journey throughout the documentary around the country trying to discover why the number of male suicides has risen in recent years. He first goes back to his grandmother who brought him up to try and find out more about his father before he was born and finds out his dad had struggled to be responsible when he was younger.  Stephen also went to see his fathers best friend who revealed that his father usually held back he's emotions and bottled it up.

After he found out some more about his late father he went to meet a rugby coach called Ben who has twice in the past tried to commit suicide, Ben reveals that playing rugby helped him through his depression and many traumatic events in his life including he's own father committing suicide unexpectedly. It is revealed in this part that traumatic events and depression can catch up with you many years after the events happen. Lastly, Stephen visits a special clinic that is just like a bed and breakfast for people who are feeling suicidal so they can live with people who will support them and convince them that life is worth living.

This documentary was very good because it gave a rare insight in to a topic that is usually not talked about, but the reality is more people commit suicide than people think and it is important that Professor Green made this documentary and also told of his own personal experiences regarding suicide.

The next documentary I watched was Reggie Yates: Life and Death in Chicago, this is about gun crime in America and police brutality. Chicago is one of the worst places in America for gun crime and the deaths of young black men and women because of it. Reggie Yates wants to find out who is responsible for this.

The show starts off with Reggie talking to some black protesters who are protesting against the police and because of shootings of young black people by the police. Many say that this has been ongoing for years and nothing has changed. He then goes to see a women who was pulled over by police whilst in a car with her two children, she shows him a clip of the police pepper spraying them and laughing whilst the children are crying in the back of the car. This is one of many incidents that occurs every year with police and black people on the streets of Chicago.

Following this he visits a memorial day for police officers who had been killed whilst on duty throughout the year, Reggie begins to ask a couple of the officers what it is like to police an area like Chicago before being asked to stop filming until the police had more information about what they were filming, the police then allowed them to carry on shooting the documentary but made them promise not to ask about any issues like police brutality and shootings which is a bit suspect if you ask me. Later Reggie and his crew follow a police car to a near by shooting but have no access to any information about what happened. They later find out that the victim was an 18 year old black man who had died in hospital. Lastly, Reggie attends a funeral of a victim of shooting in Chicago and experiences first hand the emotion and anger from the family and he admits it is heart-breaking to see.

This documentary is also very important as crimes like this are no where near as common in England and it is scary to think that in a place like Chicago these crimes are just an everyday thing, I think Reggie Yates done a good job of looking at the incidents from the perspective of the victims and the police. 

Weekly News #16

Weekly News #16

Source: BBC News and Disability news service.com 

Bus wheelchair space case makes history at Supreme court

A disabled activist has won a Supreme Court case after a dispute with a women over wheelchair and buggy space on the bus. In 2012 Doug Paulley brought his case after he was refused access to a FirstGroup bus because a women with a buggy refused to make space for him. Doug's long running case became the first "disability discrimination in the provision of service" case in the Supreme Court. The court have said that the company should consider further steps to make sure that non wheelchair users understand and vacate the space for wheelchair users.

Doug Paulley

I think that the behavior of the woman that would not move her buggy was disgusting because she is in a similar position to this so she should understand that buggy's and wheelchairs deserve their own space, considering there is usually room for 2 buggy's or wheelchairs on buses I found this really disrespectful. I am glad that Doug has stuck to it all this time and has finally got the bus company to change a couple of their policies, he deserves a lot of respect for this, 

This story represents discrimination against the disabled because a woman who could of made space for the man in the wheelchair on the bus just refused to move her buggy, the fact she inconvenienced the wheelchair user so much just because she couldn't be bothered to move her buggy is disgusting. Also the fact that this case went to court represents issues because this had to be settled in a court of law.   

Weekly News #15

Weekly News #15
Source: BBC News and The Independent

Man cuts own throat in Haverfordwest magistrates dock

Air Ambulance 

Lukasz Robert Pawlowski, 33, had pleaded guilty to sexual assault before slitting his own throat whilst waiting to be sentenced. He pleaded guilty to grabbing and kissing a shop assistant on the 30th of October. The court have no idea how

Lukasz managed to sneak the weapon in to the court because they have airport-style security scanners and security guards. After the incident he was taken by air-ambulance to Swansea hospital where it is understood he lost consciousness and a lot of blood but is now awake and receiving medical treatment.

Haverfordwest Magistrates court

I choose this story because I found it quite worrying that someone would try and cause serious harm to themselves in a court of law, also it worries me that a weapon was so easily taken in to a building that has "airport-style security scanners". This story represents issues in the way that he managed to take a weapon in to a court and also represents issues with Gender as he did plead guilty of  sexual assault because he was accused of forcing himself on to a women. 

On BBC News the story was presented as quite sympathetic and tame because they did not release many details about the event whereas the Independent went all in with the details and even included the quote "He went out, came back, muttered something then started slashing at his throat" in their article. The picture this paints is quite disturbing and makes Lukasz Pawlowski seem really selfish as he made people witness these horrific scenes.

Weekly News #14

Weekly News #14
Source: The Guardian and The Sun

Bradford MP calls for calm after police shooting sparks protests

The MP for Bradford West has called for calm as dozens take to the streets in protest over the shooting of Yassar Yaqub by police. Most of the protesters covered there faces as they threw missiles at police for nearly 3 hours on Tuesday night. Yaqub, a 28 year old father of two was shot dead by police while he was driving his Audi sports car near Huddersfield. He is an alleged drug dealer who has been pictured with multiple sports cars and has been called "a flash git". He was also accused of flying drugs into a prison in Leeds via a drone because he could make twice the amount of money if he sold to people inside. A police operation that had been planning for weeks finally caught up with Yaqub on the M62 and pulled him over before firing 3 shots through the windscreen of his Audi killing him on the spot.

 Yaqub's Audi with bullet holes from the police

This story represents issues because the police have killed someone on the spot, the idea of the protests that followed was to go against the police as they believed that Yaqub was wrongly killed. I agree that perhaps the police should not of shot and killed him straight away, although it was discovered that he had an illegal firearm in his car there is not evidence suggesting that he would of used it against them and by the sounds of it he was not going to cause the police any harm.