City of Fear
Synopsis
Protecting Islamabad – a city under siege
Pakistan’s capital used to be an ordered and peaceful place. These days it has begun to resemble a city under siege. In this film we spend a year in Islamabad. We follow the local police force as they grapple with a real and ever growing terrorist threat. At the same time we meet some of the Pakistani citizens whose lives have been torn apart by terrorism in the city.
With the type of access that is very, very difficult to achieve in the current Pakistani environment, the filmmakers have been allowed to follow the police force over the period of an entire year. At the same time they have also met with some of the young Pakistani citizens affected by the attacks the police are investigating as they attempt to put their lives back together.
Duration
1 x 60'
Definition
SD
Genre
Factual
Subgenre
Documentary Special
Producer
TRUE VISION PRODUCTIONS LTD
Production Year
2009
Press
The Guardian, Monday 22 November 2010
TV Highlights
Dispatches: City of Fear
8pm, Channel 4
This chilling documentary invites us to imagine that Islamist terror really is the omnipotent spectre we've been encouraged to fear this last decade. It does this by going somewhere where this actually is the case: Pakistan, where more than 3,500 people have died in suicide attacks in the last three years. Dispatches spent a year in the capital, Islamabad, travelling with its beleaguered police and interviewing its terrified – if resilient – citizens. "We have," says one man who lost his wife to a suicide bomber, "a 9/11 or 7/7, if not every day, then every second day."
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John Crace
The Guardian, Tuesday 23 November 2010
A suicide bombing outside Europe or the US barely rates a mention on the lunchtime news bulletins. And has been completely forgotten come the evening. It's somehow just too far away to get worked up about. Besides, it's only foreigners blowing up other foreigners. Dispatches: City of Fear (Channel 4) was a timely reminder of life outside the western bubble.
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Paul Whitelaw
The Scotsman, Wednesday 24 November 2010
...Dispatches: City of Fear, an eye-opening account of the incessant terrorist threat plaguing Pakistan's capital, Islamabad.
Filmed over one turbulent year, it followed police and citizens as they struggled to oppose and come to terms with indiscriminate attacks from Islamic extremists. With 3,500 people killed in suicide bombings in just three years, Islamabad has been forced to accept these attacks as a horrifying fact of life.
Fatally under-resourced, the police have no way of counteracting the enemy beyond rounding up suspects and "interrogating" them for leads.
This sobering report reiterated that we in the West have no comprehension of the realities of modern terrorism. "We have a 9/11 and a 7/7, if not every day, every second day in Pakistan," sighed a retired army major whose wife was murdered in a suicide attack.
The people of Islamabad are trapped in a harrowing nightmare. Their resilience is humbling, but how can they be saved?
The people of Islamabad are trapped in a harrowing nightmare. Their resilience is humbling, but how can they be saved?