Imran Khan asks North film-maker to document peace march
HUMAN rights campaigner and film-maker Carol Grayson has been invited to Pakistan to make a documentary at the request of cricketer-turned-politician Imran Khan.
Former nurse Carol, from Jesmond, Newcastle, is due to travel to a Taliban-controlled area of the country to film a demonstration highlighting the devastating impact armed military drones have on innocent civilians.
The peace march, organised by Mr Khan, will see hundreds gather in North Waziristan to make a stand against the use of the unmanned aerial vehicles that are favoured by US and UK forces against the war on terror.
Scores of civilians – including women and children – have been killed by these armed drones, but the human cost hasn’t been widely acknowledged, says Carol.
The 52-year-old said: “The invitation came directly from Imran Khan’s office, and he has approved it.
“The people these drones target are alleged insurgents but they are actually targeting ordinary civilians, and that’s the side I’m focusing on. People are backed into their homes and they literally obliterate them.”
Carol will be teaming up with North East firm Veto Films when they head out to Pakistan next month, where they will document the demonstration as well as interviewing locals who have been directly affected by drone attacks.
She said: “What I want to do is highlight the human rights issues. We need to support ordinary people over there just to make a stand and say governments can’t do as they please.”
The footage captured during the trip will be cut into a 90-minute documentary which Carol says will be intended for cinema release.
This will be the second production she has been involved in, as earlier this year a film she was executive producer on was short-listed for an Oscar in the Best Short Documentary category.
Incident in New Baghdad centres around the infamous WikiLeaks footage put on YouTube of a US Army helicopter killing eight men, including two Reuters journalists, and seriously wounding two children in Iraq.
Carol invested thousands to help the film qualify for the Academy Awards as she felt it portrayed an important message to the British and US Governments she blames for the death of her husband and his brother.
Peter and Stephen Longstaff were among thousands of UK victims who died as a result of contracting HIV and hepatitis from infected blood sold to this country by the US in the early 1980s.
Her haemophiliac husband Peter passed away in 2005 and his brother in 1986, and Carol’s fight for compensation for all those affected and to force the Department of Health to admit its part in the scandal – dubbed by renowned scientist Lord Winston as “the worst treatment disaster in the history of the NHS” – has continued for years.
While the Government has never accepted liability, Carol received an ex-gratia payment of £25,000. She used just over £3,000 of this to help Incident in New Baghdad qualify for the Oscars.
Carol now hopes others will help this new documentary come to fruition by sponsoring the film.
She said: “We are also trying to raise some money for filming as well. What we are filming is a peace march, the idea is Imran Khan will lead a group of people, which could be in the thousands.
“It’s for peace, it’s a peace initiative.”
To sponsor the film, contact Carol at
c.grayson625@btinternet.com
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http://www.journallive.co.uk/north-...ent-peace-march-61634-31768097/#ixzz25czzqPFC
Imran Khan asks North film-maker to document peace march - Today's News - News - JournalLive
cause I can only schedule my time in second last week of September... depending if there is a delegation joining from Lahore...
