Visit your volvo dealer today and get up to 4,500 in allowances. Good evening. And were going to start here tonight with the young people taking on isis in some of the most risky and creative ways imaginable. With the terror groups stronghold of raqqa, syria under assault tonight by u. S. Backed forces, youre going to get to meet the middleclass kids from this city who are fighting back with something they believe is more powerful than guns or bombs. This is what it looks like to have isis take over your hometown. And this is what it looks like to resist. Its a modernday david and goliath story. They work in secret and under constant threat. Reporter now depicted in the new documentary city of ghosts. A heroic band of young friends turned citizen journalists who at grave personal risk seek to expose the reality of life under isis. Inside their native raqqa, syria. Horrors that outside media have rarely been able to cover. They call themselves raqqa is being slaughtered silently, or rbss. Their goal, to Bring InternationalMedia Attention to whats going on in raqqa. Oscarnominated director Matthew Heinemann followed their work against the isis Propaganda Machine. They really just wanted to protect and expose the horrors of their town because they they wanted to fight for their people. Reporter the film comes at a pivotal time in the battle to defeat isis in syria and iraq. Isis control is crumbling in mosul, and just this week u. S. Backed fighters have advanced into the see of raqqa, which has been the terrorist groups de facto capital since 2013. But despite losing ground isiss Propaganda Machine is still going strong, and the mission of these citizen journalists has been to use counterprogramming to fight it. What were you trying to show in terms of the difference between their propaganda materials and reality . Ouisis was reporting that everything was fine, raqqa was paradise, and for us we started to film the reality, whats really going on there in the city. Reporter aziz al hamasa and ha mooud al musa grew up in raqqa and were motivated to start their act viv group to provide a contrast to isiss glossy highly produced recruitment videos. Translator isis also claimed that all civilians are supporting and welcoming them and they are enjoying public support, which wasnt true. So it was our mission to show the other face of isis in the city. Reporter they started capturing and posting stark scenes such as these of the harsh realities under isis. Like children waiting in neverending lines for food. Their Facebook Page quickly became one of the only nonisis sources for information. The fact that these guys are combating that with sort of a countercampaign, a counterpropaganda campaign to expose the truth was a fascinating story to me. Reporter we met aziz and hamoud in new york city during the week their film premiered at the tribeca film festival. Our main goal is to reach out as much as we can for the audience of people around the world to tell them about whats going on in our city. Reporter they both told me they never expected to become activists. I didnt come from a political background. Family i had nothing to do with. Politic, media, whatever. I was biochemistry student. Reporter but now they are considered enemies of isis. Threats to their lives became so intense that aziz, hamoud and many of the others were forced to flee syria. But they figured out a way to continue their work from the outside. How much danger are these 17 reporters in, and how much time do you spend worrying about their wellbeing . If anyone will notice that they are doing something wrong, reporters or collecting the news, they will be executed. But when you believe in something, you will not care about what will happen. Either we will win or they will kill all of us. Theyve suffered immensely for what theyve done. Theyve lost colleagues. Theyve lost family members. You know, theyre still being threatened by isis. Reporter hamoud in particular has paid a heavy price. Theres an incredibly moving and horrifying scene in the film where youre watching the video that isis made where they murder your father. And you say that you actually watch this video a lot. Why is that . Translator every time i feel tired or that i should stop my work and stay away from the uprising and the media because of everything i have lost, i watch the video and watch the look in my fathers eyes. It feels like if he is sending me a message to continue what i have been doing and to never stop for the sake of those who died. Reporter aziz is now living in germany. He and others sought refuge there after one of their own was killed by isis. In the film we see the bittersweet reunion with his team. But even life outside of syria doesnt promise safety. They were hunting you down and killing you. Your friends, many of them died. Did you not think at any point this is too dangerous, ive got to stop . They gave their life for this work, for this organization. So we feel ashamed even to think about stopping this work. Reporter as the fight to drive isis out of raqqa is under way, they are hoping that one day their work will no longer be necessary. Do you have any optimism that peace will come back to raqqa and that you may be able to move home someday . I hope so. So im still optimist ic. And the documentary city of ghosts opens from Amazon Studios and ifc films in new york city on friday and then nationwide over the next several weeks. Next here on nightline, man who helped launch katy perry and royals singer lorde is helping seek out and right the cases of the wrongfully convicted. Of proof ti can take on Psoriatic Arthritis with humira. 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But if you want all four, mmmm. You gotta get cute. You gotta let a baby sleep on your belly. vo beneful breaknbites, with real beef as the 1 ingredient. Ouch new bandaid® brand skinflex™, bandages. Our best bandage yet it dries almost instantly. Better . Yeah. Good thing because stopping never crosses your mind. Bandaid® brand. Stick with it™ lobster and shrimp are teaming up in so many new dishes. Fest, like coastal lobster and shrimp, with shrimp crusted with kettle chips. Or new, overthetop lobster and shrimp overboard. But it cant last, so hurry in. It is the surprising side hustle of the man behind katy perry, lorde, and kid rock. Not only does he have an eye for talent, but he also has one for injustice. Heres abcs Elizabeth Vargas. Turn it up its your Favorite Song reporter youve heard of katy perry. Chained to the rhythm of her catchy hits like i kissed a girl. I kissed a girl and i liked it but you probably dont know this mans name. Its jason flom. And hes responsible for launching katys career and dozens of others. Today the ceo of lava records is hanging out with wyclef jean. Wrongly convicted just aint right the audience is a bit unusual. It includes a man who set up this barber shop after spending 20 years behind bars for a crime he didnt commit. I was wrongfully convicted at the age of 17. Reporter turns out the music mogul, whos been wildly successful at launching hitmakers, gets his inspiration from exonerees. Im fascinated by their stories and im fascinated by their strength and their courage and their spirit. Reporter flom is a founding board member of the Innocence Project, a nonprofit that uses dna evidence to exonerate the wrongfully convicted. To date the group has helped free almost 200 people. You have a fascinating job and yet you have found this whole other second existence in the Innocence Project. Why is this such a passion for you . We have two separate systems of justice in this country, one if you have money and one if you dont. And that is a fundamental inequity that has to be addressed. Reporter many Innocence Project clients have been guests on floms podcast called Wrongful Conviction. I walked past the guys cell, hes hanging there. The scene youre describing makes Shawshank Redemption sound like a disney movie. Main goal for me of the podcast is to open the minds of the audience, every one of whom is a potential juror. There is a healthy segment of the population in this country that says if youre in prison youre guilty. What i say to those people is you need to learn. You need to educate yourself because it could happen to you. Reporter today instead of walking the red carpet flom is walking into singsing, the notoriously dangerous maximum security prison in westchester, new york. Hes here to see convicted killer john adrian, or j. J. Velasquez. Give you a hug, by the way. Reporter velasquez is an Innocence Project client, serving 25 years to life for the murder of a retired police officer. Flom believes velasquez when he says hes innocent. Hes a wonderful person. Hes been helping me out right now in obtaining clemency possibly. We did a podcast in the end of january. The suspect they were looking for was a black male with dreads. Right . Right. Have you ever been a black male or had dreads . Maybe in another life. They built a case against him which when you look at the facts makes absolutely no sense. Reporter floms pursuit of justice seems to be in his dna. His father, joseph flom, was a prominent mergers and acquisitions attorney. Your dad was a lawyer. Bigtime lawyer, actually. He was a great inspiration to me. He said do whatever you want to do. Try to be the best at it. But just make the world a better place. Reporter he wanted to be a rock star, but his mom said he need odd a real job, so he started at the bottom of the Music Industry ladder, hanging up posters in record stores. Staple gun and doublesided tape. The tools of the trade, right . I was able to find a band and convince my boss to sign them. We put the record out, and it exploded. Reporter flom went on to sign a whos who of rock and roll at Atlantic Records and then virgin records. Were not gonna take it twisted sister, stone temple pilots, and kid rock to name a few. How do you know when you listen to a song that art involvement has something . Once in a while you get that tingly feeling. You have to act on that instinct. Well never be royals reporter that instinct kicked in when he heard this song, royals, by a then unknown new zealand teenager named lorde. She was already lorde. I mean, she was born to do this. Reporter but there was a california girl he almost missed. Katy perry, you almost passed on her, didnt you . She walked in, and immediately i thought this girls a star. And then i played it for my senior staff. Most of them were like, this is horrible. And i was listening to katy on my headphones, and i was like, oh, my god, im an idiot. I think i totally screwed this up. Like shes brilliant. Reporter floms intuition has made him a trendsetter. They said i was robbing a dice game, which was a joke. You know. Reporter his podcast Wrongful Conviction now recording its third season taps into the current cultural fascination with whodunits and who didnt do its. They put me in this predicament with this guy, either he was going to kill me or i was going to kill him. Reporter for flom it all started in the 1990s. When he read a newspaper article about a young man sentenced to life in prison for a nonviolent first offense drug crime. He wasnt innocent. But i just thought the sentence was so wildly disproportionate to what he had done. Reporter so flom picked up the phone and called an attorney friend who took the case pro bono and eventually got the man released from prison. The lights went off in my brain. I said this is my purpose in life. Theres half a Million People in jail in america that havent been convicted of anything but they cant post braille. Then of course cal yves browder relate brought it to light. At age 16 caliph browder was sent to Rikers Island for allegedly stealing a backpack. His 3,000 bail was way too much for his family to pay. I didnt rob nobody. You didnt . No. Reporter browder turned down a plea bargain on principle. Youre not going to make me say i did something just so i could go home. Reporter he was an exception. More than 90 of defendants who wait in jail without posting bail will plead guilty, even if they didnt commit the crime. Browder was never convicted and eventually he was released. But the brutality of rikers stayed with him. Just two years after he got out he hanged himself at his home in the bronx. Some of the most violent, dangerous institutions in the country are actually jails, like Rikers Island. People will plead guilty to things they didnt do. Reporter because of stories like caliphs flom helped create the bronx freedom fund, the First Charitable bail fund for new yorkers charged with lowlevel offenses. 97 of our clients have shown up for every court date. Which totally destroys the myth that we need cash bail in order to compel people to show up for their court dates. Place was full of blood already. Reporter today floms recording a new episode of his podcast. His guest, antoine day, was convicted for a killing that happened in chicago while antoine was in new orleans. You were 1,000 miles away. Right . Right. When the thing happened. Reporter antoine served ten years before getting a new trial and having the charges against him dropped. I appreciate you having this platform. For a guy like myself to be able to let this out. This is so important. I feel a very heavy sense of responsibility to do as much as i can for as long as i can. And thats exactly what im going to do. Reporter for nightline im Elizabeth Vargas in new york. Next here the allout digital war between Rob Kardashian and his exfiance blac chyna. And finally tonight, an example of the worst that social media has to offer, courtesy of Rob Kardashian. How are you, rob . Rob kardashian is giving new meaning to the term baby mama drama. The reality star lighting up instagram today, accusing blac chyna, his exfiance and the mother of his baby girl, of cheating. The series of angry posts included private naked pictures of the stripper turned entrepreneur that many are decrying as revenge porn. Perez hilton weighing in via twitter, hey, blac chyna, might be a good time to google revenge porn laws in california. After outcry over the explicit posts instagram suspended Rob Kardashians account and he then moved the public fallout to twitter, where he continued his tirade. Chyna responded on snapchat, where she has alleged the sock mogul physically abused her. Rob, you did all this but you beat me up and try to act like it never happened. You put a hand on me and i swear on god. An attorney representing chyna has told abc news they are considering all Legal Options and recourses at this time. We want to thank you for watching abc news tonight. And as always, were online 24 7 at abcnews. Com and on our nightline Facebook Page. Thanks