Links
Filmmaker mocks Afghan police corruption with 'reverse bribes'
On the hidden camera video, it looks like any other Kabul police checkpoint where motorists are asked to pay small bribes.
A tall, scraggly bearded officer stops a battered station wagon, looks through the trunk and checks the driver's papers.
Then the uniformed officer leans into the car window and makes an unexpected offer.
"On behalf of the city of Kabul and the Kabul police, if you have paid a bribe or 'tip' to someone in the past, I apologize," the officer says in Dari to the disbelieving driver. "Please take 100 Afghanis," or about $2.
One warm afternoon last summer, Kabul-based artist Aman Mojadidi flagged down dozens of cars at a fake checkpoint and handed a little reverse "baksheesh" while his co-conspirators filmed the befuddled responses of drivers.
Mojadidi wanted to draw attention to the pervasive misuse of power in Afghanistan and to see how Afghan drivers would react when he apologized on behalf of the widely scorned police force.