Five Bulgarian nurses working in Libya are accused by the Libyan government of infecting hundreds of children with the AIDS virus. The nurses remain imprisoned without proof.
TEARS of the MOTHERLAND
directed by Jesse Steele
Christiana was saying: “Now even if I have to die, I wouldn’t feel sorrow
because, the whole world knows that we are innocent.”
I am Grandma Zorka from Bulgaria, Mother of Christiana one of the nurses in Libya
and mother-in-law of Zdravko Georgiev.
When Christiana was a student, we lived here.
In the eighth grade she applied to the high school of Arts. She was very talented.
She would have been better off an artist, rather than a nurse.
She is very smart. She has lived a very poor life.
I feel so sorry that all this is happening to her now.
She went there for a better life with Zdravko.
What have these Libyans done?
For eight years they worked there and for eight years now they have been imprisoned.
And still again and again she says:
“The authority is bad, but the Libyans are good people. ”
When they were imprisoned for a year and a half, we knew nothing.
They were not allowed any communication with us and that was terrifying.
I am proud of my children, Zdravko and Christiana.
They have always been a good example. People to be proud of.
They haven’t done anybody any harm.
She hung there all night from the window like this.
Handcuffed. Her feet could barely touch the ground.
There was a female guard, who was beating something with a stick
so that they could not get any sleep.
She was tortured with electricity 10-15 times.
Twice she was injected with drugs.
They tied her up naked like this,
like Jesus on the metal bed-frame.
They beat her on the nipples and between her legs with a club.
“We have a special machine.” They told her.
“We will electrocute you with a prod inside your vagina.”
The nurses were at the mercy of “Pit-bulls”
that's what I call them… the torturers.
The most sadistic of these were Harad Derbal, Juma Misheri, Abjul Madjit Shol.
Because of the torture her menstruation stopped for 9 months.
Even if they gave me gold, and told me to torture someone,
how could I torture them???
It’s horrible pain, like being stabbed.
I cry all night like this… aching, wailing for them,
thinking about the accusation that they are murderers, poisoners of children…
and I know it is not true.
That’s all.
8 years these innocent people have been there
and what are the bases of the accusations?
The whole world accepts. The whole world understands.
Only the Libyans don’t concede,
all they want is to kill these innocent people.
How long will they be kept imprisoned there?
The facts speak of innocence, and Libya…
Death Sentences!!!
How long will they be imprisoned by Kadaffi?
That’s the big question.
This is too long, 8 years innocent in prison yet there they remain.
We have cried so many tears, I cried, and they cried.
I embraced them all… I still feel them so close.
This is my family.
The facts justify our certainty, that the proceedings of the court are entirely corrupt.
I’m saying: ‘Who can help – let them help.’
There are people who can.
They’re helping.
I have faith in God.
Sometimes He is there for us, and sometimes He is not…
Yet still He is God.
Dedicated to the Bulgarian nurses imprisoned in Libya and sentenced to death.
produced and directed by Jesse Steele
