Dateline
Returns Tuesdays from 7 March at 9:30pm on SBS and SBS On Demand
Dateline is an award-winning international documentary series with a current affairs backbone. Each week, Dateline scours the globe to uncover special characters and a world of daring stories. In 2023, Dateline launches its new format featuring two impactful stories per week, including an in-depth feature and a shorter human-interest story.
Episode 1 Synopsis
The Church and the Assassin
Kumi Taguchi goes inside the world of a controversial church that some call a ‘cult.’ This Church is now under investigation for its role in Japanese politics since the assassination of Prime Minister Abe.
On July 8, 2022, former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was shot. The shock assassination stopped the nation, and the headlines sold a captivating story: a mother bankrupted by a controversial church, a disillusioned son seeking retribution.
Kumi travels to Japan to uncover how this political violence has changed a country she holds a deep personal connection to.
With rare access inside the Japanese headquarters of The Unification Church, now known as the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification, Kumi meets the members who claim they are being persecuted for their faith since the assassination of Abe. Some say they have been threatened, while others are frightened to acknowledge their faith.
The Unification Church is a new religious movement that was founded in Korea in 1954. The Church’s founder Reverend Sun Myung Moon was a self-proclaimed Messiah, born in what is now North Korea. Over the years, the church gained notoriety for its mass weddings and numerous splinter groups and foundations.
After Abe’s assassination, over 100 Japanese politicians revealed their ties to the Church, unravelling politics and plummeting the sitting government’s approval ratings.
As Kumi travels through Japan, she meets the families and lawyers who claim significant amounts of money have been lost through excessive donations to the Church. They say for years their issues with the Church have been ignored, until now.
Episode 2* *Synopsis
Breaking Up with Britain
The death of Queen Elizabeth II on 8 September 2022 sent shockwaves across the Commonwealth. Now, several former colonies, including Australia, are debating ditching the monarchy entirely.
Reporter Darren Mara travels to Jamaica, where constitutional tides are turning, and the government is pushing to become a republic.
Like Australia, Jamaica has a troubled history as a British colony. Darren visits sites at the heart of the nation’s history. He tours a slave house that was once home to the country’s British elite, while some 2,000 indentured servants toiled in its gardens.
The Caribbean was a crucial waypoint of the transatlantic slave trade, with an estimated 40% of enslaved Africans shipped to the islands. But from this history of subjugation, a spirit of resistance grew strong. The rebellious songs of Jamaica’s reggae music were the soundtrack of emancipation and continue to inspire a movement of independence.
Following a move by neighbouring Barbados, Darren meets the Jamaicans fighting for reparations, and others who still feel loyal to the crown.
Episode 3 Synopsis
Welcome Back to Syria
As children, the Awad sisters fled to Denmark to escape the war in Syria. 10 years later, authorities have ordered them to return. In this special Dateline, reporter Evan Williams investigates whether Denmark’s new hardline, deportation programs are a death sentence for thousands of Syrians.
Denmark and Syria are inextricably linked. Since the Syrian Civil War began in 2011, the Danes have taken in more than 34,000 Syrian refugees. Today, the Assad regime has reclaimed control of around 70 percent of Syria, but the war still rages with new threats emerging almost daily. And yet, in 2019, the Danish government became the first in Europe to classify certain areas of Syria as safe – cancelling the temporary protection visas of hundreds of refugees and ordering them to leave Denmark.
Seemingly at odds with the country’s socially progressive reputation, the move comes as Denmark’s left-wing government adopts the immigration policies of the right, chasing a “zero-asylum seeker” target. But the political manoeuvring has a huge, humanitarian cost.
The Awad Sisters Maryam (22) and Aya (19) have felt it. Having fled with their parents from Syria’s capital Damascus in the early days of the war, the sisters now consider themselves Danish. They grew up and were educated in Aarhus, the country’s second largest city, they speak fluent Danish and have no family left in Syria as even their parents have been granted political asylum in Denmark.
Evan meets the sisters as they prepare to fight their deportation order in court. They will argue that safety in Syria is a lie, especially for the families of those wanted by the regime, like their father. The Awad’s have waited over two years for their day in court, but Evan discovers that other Syrian refugees are in a more frightening limbo.
