New online museum takes visitors into ISIS jails

Syrian journalist's quest to find kidnapped colleague becomes museum documenting plight of ISIS detainees

The museum uses 3D imaging technology to walk visitors through sites used by the terror group, alongside testimony from former prisoners. Photo: IPM

The creator of an immersive online museum focusing on the experience of ISIS detention has said he hopes to honour those who suffered under the tyranny the terror group wrought over Iraq and Syria a decade ago. The virtual ISIS Prisons Museum uses advanced digital tools like 3D modelling alongside personal testimonies to powerfully transport visitors into spaces where unimaginable suffering took place using the power of the internet.

ISIS held 40 per cent of Iraqi territory and a third of Syria at the height of its power, including Iraq's second city Mosul and Raqqa, in Syria. Public executions, beatings and imprisonment without trial or for transgressions as small as shaving were common methods used to control the population between 2014 and the loss of its last territory in 2019.

The project's first two in-depth investigations into the crimes committed by the group in its detention facilities focus on the Ahdath Prison in Mosul and the Stadium Prison in Raqqa. Detailed maps and illustrations of what life was like as a detainee accompany testimony from those who endured captivity at the hands of the group.

The museum’s origins are deeply personal for its founder, Amer Matar. As a child, Amer played football with friends at Raqqa Stadium, a once-vibrant community hub that later became the infamous Stadium Prison under ISIS control.

“I have so many memories of playing here, where children would gather for football,” Amer, a Syrian journalist himself held in captivity by the Syrian regime in 2011, recalls. The stadium’s transformation into a site of cruelty and fear left Amer determined to reclaim the memory of such spaces and preserve the stories of those who endured torture there.

This mission took shape in 2017 as ISIS retreated from the territory they had occupied in Syria. Amer and his team of investigative journalists, artists, and legal experts began searching for their missing colleague, photojournalist Mohammed Nour, who was allegedly kidnapped by ISIS in 2013.

“The idea started when we went looking for him,” Amer explains. “We entered these ISIS prisons hoping to find him, but instead, we found thousands of documents, names of prisoners, records of prison life, and evidence of unimaginable abuse.” These discoveries laid the foundations for the museum, as Amer’s team created a meticulous system to preserve these records, hoping to give voice to those silenced by ISIS.

With interactive 3D tours, the museum lets visitors "walk" through notorious sites like the Stadium Prison, witnessing how ISIS turned familiar places into tools of terror. To prevent these memories from fading, Amer’s team used 3D cameras to capture physical spaces and prisoner names etched on to walls, preserving these testaments to survival. “We wanted to make sure these memories, these names, wouldn’t disappear,” Amer says, underscoring the museum’s commitment to safeguarding every fragment of history.

Recording horror

What brings the maps, graphics and 3D tours to life are the hundreds of video and audio interviews with former detainees, families of the missing, and survivors of abduction. These testimonies provide an unfiltered view of ISIS’s tactics detailing arbitrary detention, and torture methods used in its prison network.

Inspired by a trove of over 70,000 documents left behind by the group as it fled an international coalition to root it out, the museum carefully preserves each account, letting survivors speak of their experiences unaltered and unfiltered. “Each topic is a collection of stories,” Amer says, “like our upcoming piece on the Al Shaitat massacre, where 820 people were killed. We have mass graves, prison cells, and squares – all documented in 3D to preserve their history.”

Among the deeply personal accounts is that of Khalil Ahmad Al Nasser, a sanitation worker from Raqqa, who endured arrest and torture in the Stadium Prison. Early one morning in August 2015, ISIS forces raided his home without warning, blindfolded and handcuffed him and his brothers and cousin, and brought them to the prison.

Walking around the derelict stadium in a video posted on the museum's website, Khalil recalls standing in a crowded corridor for three days and being beaten every time he tried to sit. The guards controlled detainees with hoses and tasers.

"Later we were moved to a large room and hung by our legs for seven days," Khalil says, standing in what was the interrogation room, where he says he was pressured to confess to collaborating with the Global Coalition, a charge he knew nothing about. He also recalls the trauma of being forced to witness the execution of four prisoners. “Hearing their final pleas was the worst form of torture,” he says.

More than an archive

The ISIS Prisons Museum is primarily a digital platform, but is preparing to host its first real-world exhibition at Unesco's headquarters in Paris next week. The Three Walls. Spatial Narratives of Old Mosul exhibition will highlight a section of the museum's work around the historic city under ISIS, which has been painstakingly reconstructed with Unesco expertise and funds since its liberation in 2017.

The exhibition will serve as a reminder that the museum is more than an archive; it is a testament to the resilience of survivors and a call for justice. By preserving these testimonies, the museum hopes to honour those who suffered while laying a foundation for future accountability. This meticulously curated documentation is a sobering reminder of the consequences of unchecked violence and demands global awareness of extremism and human rights abuses.

“After more than seven years of work, I hope we’ve created a new way to document and honour the tragedies people in our country and region have experienced. This museum brings a clear picture of what has been endured and shows how new technology can serve investigative journalism and art to truly benefit people,” Amer says.

As part of its mission to serve those devastated by ISIS rule, a new initiative, #Jawab (Arabic for “answer”), aims to support families searching for kidnapped relatives. With a website to be launched next year, Jawab will use the IPM archive as a tool to trace those disappeared by ISIS and help their families to reconstruct what happened to their loved ones, pursue justice and find closure.

“Our work is for the people, to give them answers, and to make sure these stories endure,” Amer explains. He is hopeful that the museum’s commitment to preservation and accountability will offer solace and aid to those still searching for their loved ones.