The Frontline Club

After four years of negotiations, the Colombian government and the largest rebel group in the country have reached a deal to end more than 50 years of civil conflict, paving the way for an end to the longest running war in the Americas. The asymmetrical Colombian Conflict lasted 52 years, claimed over 220,000 lives and displaced more than five million people.

The peace agreement outlines a timetable for the rebels, known as the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, to abandon their arms. It also sets out a pathway through which former fighters will enter civilian life, and in some cases, run for office. Thousands of rebel fighters were raised since childhood to carry out armed struggle and re-integration into civilian life remains an uncertain process. While the deal has been met with praise from many international leaders, critics of the agreement have said that the government’s deal with the FARC would allow perpetrators of atrocities, among the rebels and on the government side, to be dealt minimal punishment.

Can Colombia become a symbol of hope in a world wracked with conflict? We were joined by a panel of journalists and experts to discuss this historic peace agreement and what it means for the people of Colombia.

Speakers:

Ed Vulliamy is a writer for The Guardian and The Observer. In 2013, he won the award for literary reporting named after the Polish writer Ryszard Kapuściński for his book Amexica: War Along the Borderline, a vivid dissection of the violent US-Mexico ‘war on drugs’.

Charlotte Gill has been involved in the Colombian Caravana since 2010 and has been a director since 2012. The Colombian Caravana UK Lawyers Group is a charity which works to promote and protect human rights and access to justice in Colombia through working in collaboration with Colombian human rights lawyers and recently organised its fifth biennial international delegation of lawyers to the county. Charlotte has an MSc in Human Rights from the London School of Economics and wrote her dissertation on the Peace Community of San José de Apartadó. Additionally, Charlotte currently works on campaigns and advocacy at ARTICLE 19, a human rights organisation dedicated to the defence of freedom of expression globally.

HE MR Néstor Osorio Londoño is a Colombian diplomat. He became Colombia’s Ambassador to the United Kingdom in February 2014. He was the 27th Permanent Representative of Colombia to the United Nations.

More than 2,000 leaked incident reports from Australia’s detention camp for asylum seekers on the remote Pacific island of Nauru were published in The Guardian in August. Sparking outrage and protest, the Nauru files revealed shocking details of assaults, sexual abuse, self-harm attempts, child abuse and poor living conditions endured by asylum seekers held in the facility – painting a picture of a dysfunctional asylum processing system.

After the files were published, the Australian government defended their asylum processing policies, suggesting that the accounts in the 8,000 page report were comprised of false accusations of abuse and unverified sources. Immigration minister Peter Dutton has been quoted as saying “Nauru is not part of Australia, so this is an issue for the Nauruan government.”

Will the publication of the Nauru files lead to changes in the country’s asylum policies? We were joined by a panel of journalists, migration experts and human rights defenders to discuss their initial reactions to the Nauru files, the implications of the reports and how a group of journalists broke a story from within a detention centre that has remained historically off-limits to the media.

Chair:

Emily Wilson has been with the Guardian since 2000, working across news and features. She was network editor of the UK edition of the Guardian’s website before moving to Sydney in April 2014. She is now editor of Guardian Australia.

Speakers:

Will Woodward is Guardian Australia’s deputy editor. He has been editor of G1 (the news section of the paper), deputy national editor, chief political correspondent and education editor, and was a Laurence Stern fellow at the Washington Post.

Anna Neistat is Senior Director for Research at Amnesty International. Over the last fifteen years she has worked in most of the world’s conflict zones and has recently returned from a visit to Nauru.

Ian Woolverton is Head of Media for Save the Children Australia. He works with the media to raise the profile of issues including humanitarian crises, the health of Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islanders, youth justice and asylum seekers and refugees. He has deployed to many humanitarian emergencies, including the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami.

Eiri Ohtani is Project Director of the Detention Forum in the UK since 2009. She was also European Regional Coordinator of the International Detention Coalition between May 2015 and August 2016. She has over 15 years of experience working with asylum seekers and migrants, including directorship of a specialist legal advice agency.

Kleptocracy is a new series of events investigating corruption and dirty money in London: its origins, its launderers, and how it gets spent. Hosted by investigative journalist Oliver Bullough, Kleptoscope brings together journalists, campaigners, academics and others to discuss the latest research into the UK’s role as an enabler of global kleptocracy.

The first event will feature three groundbreaking stories focusing on the former Soviet Union, exploring how Russian kleptocrats have used the services of the British capital to retain and launder their money; how London’s property market has become a piggy bank for the world’s corrupt elite; and how ex-Soviet businessmen have covertly funded MPs and parliamentary groups, gaining preferential treatment as a result.

Speakers:

Roman Borisovich is a former banker and a political activist and campaigner against corruption. After appearing in the documentary From Russia With Cash he set up ClampK.org, and is the architect of the hugely successful Kleptocracy Tours.

Chido Dunn is a Senior Campaigner in Governments and Corruption at Global Witness. She works on their investigation into whether the UK is providing safe haven for corrupt individuals and their assets – with a primary focus on luxury property.

Oliver Bullough is an award-winning journalist and the author of two books about Russian history and politics, The Last Man in Russia and Let Our Fame be Great. He is also an expert guide for the Kleptocracy Tours initiative, which exposes money laundering via property in London.

As unrest escalates in Turkey — a country that once prided itself as being a beacon of secularism and stability in the Middle East – writers and journalists are facing a crackdown on press freedom, including jailing, blackmail and the forceful takeover of major news platforms.

After a Turkish court ruled in March that Zaman, an opposition newspaper critical of president Erdoğan, should be run by appointed trustees, the offices were raided and tear gas and rubber bullets were used to dispel protesters. Local journalists continue to face extreme intimidation, threats and charges of espionage.

Restrictions on press freedom reflect similar treatment within civil society groups, which are widely seen as losing independence from the government. The recent attempted military coup led to further attacks on journalists, raising international concerns that Turkey has become an increasingly perilous place for writers and reporters.

While Erdoğan maintains that the press in Turkey is among the most free in the world, human rights organisations warn that freedom of expression is under ever-growing threat. We will be joined by prominent Turkish writers, along with media monitoring experts, to discuss their work in the context of the new dangers faced by writers and journalists in Turkey today.

Since her first assignment to Afghanistan in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, award-winning photojournalist Paula Bronstein has made the country her mission.

Returning frequently to document the daily lives of the Afghan people against the backdrop of a brutal and protracted war, Bronstein has captured ongoing challenges in Afghanistan – including human rights abuses against women and increased violence and instability – as well as the stirrings of new hope, including women participating in elections for the first time.

On the publication of her new book Afghanistan: Between Hope and Fear, Paula Bronstein was joined by Christina Lamb, the roving foreign affairs correspondent for The Sunday Times to discuss her expansive work that intimately captures everyday life in Afghanistan against the backdrop of the 14-year US-led invasion and its enduring legacy.

The Frontline Club, VICE News and English PEN present a panel discussion on the role of local fixers and translators in foreign news gathering and the responsibility of news organisations.

For decades, newsrooms around the world have relied on local journalists, fixers and translators to help journalists carry out on-the-ground reporting from unfamiliar and dangerous regions. Without their support and local knowledge, international news gathering would not be able to function and some of the world’s most important stories would never have made the news.

But who looks out for the fixers when the international news teams go home? And what happens when local fixers become victims of a media crackdown against journalists?

An expert panel reveals how international news gathering really works, considers the risks in getting the story out and assesses the role of international news organisations in safeguarding the unsung heroes of foreign reporting.

Panelists:

Mowaffaq Safadi is a freelance fixer, translator and journalist who works across broadcast and print media. He writes regularly for Arabic and Syria-opposition websites and was a presenter for Syrian radio station Hawa Smart. He has worked for the Guardian, the Observer, BBC Radio 4 and international NGOs.

Issa Awadat is a freelance Syrian video journalist and photographer working on the current conflict in Syria from 2011-2015. He has been employed as a reporter and field producer for a number of western media outlets including the BBC, CBS and CBS 60 Minutes. As well as his work with the media, he has also produced short video documentaries and still images for a number of NGOs, covering the refugee crisis across the Turkish/Syrian border.

In 2015, after receiving numerous threats from ISIS, he left Turkey and gained asylum in the UK.

Jo Glanville is director of English PEN. She was an award-winning editor of Index on Censorship and was previously a BBC current affairs producer and documentary maker. She edited Qissat (Telegram), an anthology of short stories by Palestinian women writers. She has written for the Guardian, the Daily Telegraph, the London Review of Books and the Observer, amongst other publications.

Kevin Sutcliffe, Head of News Programming, VICE Europe

Sarah Giaziri, Middle East North Africa Officer at Rory Peck

Evan Williams, Journalist and filmmaker specialising in international investigations

From Northern Ireland to Vietnam, the Falklands to Syria, the photographs taken by Don McCullin have come to define some of the most pivotal events of the past 70 years.

As he publishes Irreconcilable Truths, a definitive retrospective of his life and work, he will be joining us in conversation with Channel 4 News presenter Jon Snow to reveal the stories behind some of the most iconic images of the second half of the 21st century.

London’s Metropolitan Police stopped Mark Duggan — a young, black, British man — early one morning in 2011. Minutes later Duggan was dead. His killing at the hands of the police sparked the now infamous Tottenham riots and made headlines around the globe, but, as so often happens, the issue soon dropped from the news reports.

Picking up the story where the media left off, George Amponsah‘s The Hard Stop begins in Duggan’s neighbourhood, following his friends Marcus and Kurtis as they fight for justice while struggling against discrimination in their daily lives. Using the police inquiry into Duggan’s death as a backdrop, Amponsah challenges the prevailing spin on events and focuses instead on those who were closest to the young man – as well as the black voices that are consistently marginalised.

An emerging talent in the documentary world, Amponsah‘s investment in London’s black community is evident in his unprecedented level of access and in his commitment to capturing the world Duggan knew. Amponsah brings a lyrical beauty to the streets of North London, painting a very different picture than the one that’s often seen on the evening news.

This screening was followed by a Q&A with director George Amponsah and protagonists Marcus Know and Kurtis Henville.

Late one evening, investigative journalist Bastian Obermayer received an anonymous message offering him access to secret data. Through encrypted channels, he subsequently received documents revealing how the president of Argentina had sequestered millions of dollars of state money for private use. This was just the beginning.

Obermayer and fellow Süddeutsche journalist Frederik Obermaier soon found themselves immersed in a secret world where complex networks of shell companies help the super-rich to hide their money. In the face of the largest data leak in history, they activated an international network of fellow journalists to investigate every line of enquiry. Working in strict secrecy for over a year, they uncovered incriminating cases involving aristocrats, kings, international dictators, celebrities and European prime ministers.

We were joined by Bastian Obermayer and Frederik Obermaier – in conversation with The Guardian‘s Luke Harding – to hear the inside story of what Edward Snowden has called “the biggest leak in the history of data journalism.”

Frederik Obermaier and Bastian Obermayer are award-winning investigative journalists at Süddeutsche Zeitung, Germany’s largest broadsheet. The first people to have access to the Panama papers, they were previously part of the international team of journalists who revealed the Offshore Leaks, Luxembourg Leaks and Swiss Leaks.

Digital and hand-drawn animation techniques are increasingly seen in short and feature-length documentaries, interweaving with traditional filming methods and sometimes carrying a whole story from start to finish.

Given that animation has the freedom to represent, stylise, and re-imagine the world, this form lends itself well to documentary stories capturing human experience and a multiplicity of narratives and perspectives.

We will be joined by a panel of seasoned documentary filmmakers and groundbreaking animators who will present a behind-the-scenes look at the artistic techniques applied to recent projects, as well as the broader motivations and challenges to representing reality in animated form.

Speakers to be announced soon.

Bella Honess Roe (moderator) teaches Film Studies at the University of Surrey. She has published extensively on areas in animation, documentary and British cinema and her book Animated Documentary was published in 2013. Prior to entering academia, Bella worked in feature film script development in London and Los Angeles.

Dee Hibbert-Jones is an Academy Award nominated filmmaker and fine artist. She works collaboratively with Nomi Talisman on film, new media and fine art projects that address critical social issues, politics and personal testimony. Hibbert-Jones was awarded the Filmmaker Award with Talisman from the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke (2015) and the Gideon award for support to indigent minorities (2016) by the California Public Defenders Association. Hibbert-Jones and Talisman’s most recent animated documentary film Last Day of Freedom won Best Short Documentary at the International Documentary (IDA) Awards 2015, won an Emmy for Northern California, and was nominated for an 88th Academy Award for Best Documentary Short Subject. Hibbert-Jones is an Associate Professor of Art and Digital Art New Media at the University of California, Santa Cruz, USA founder and Co-director of SPARC a research centre for social and environmental justice.

Marie-Margaux Tsakiri-Scanatovits set up the multi-award winning animation studio The Moth Collective along with Daniel Chester and Dave Prosser. After meeting at the Royal College of Art, they formed in 2010 to share a collective passion for all things drawn. The Moth Collective has received acclaim for their imaginative and thought provoking hand-drawn work. They have since worked on a myriad of different projects, covering documentary feature films, commercials, short films, illustrated books and music videos for clients such as The New York Times, The Guardian, WWF, and Headspace.

Katerina Athanasopoulou is a Greek artist living in London who creates animated films for cinema and gallery space. She studied Fine Art at Aristotle University in Greece and graduated with an MA Animation from the RCA in 2002. Her award-winning films have been shown internationally at film festivals and galleries, including Clermont-Ferrand International Short Film Festival, Thessaloniki Biennale 5, Holland Animation Film Festival, European Media Art Festival, and The Museum of Contemporary Art, Zagreb. Works include: Branches of Life (2016), commissioned by Cast Iron Radio and Recording for the Body Of Songs project, supported by Wellcome Trust and Arts Council England; Rupture (2015), commissioned by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation for The Art of Saving a Life; The Violet Hour (2014), commissioned by the London College of Fashion for a brief set by the Venice Architecture Biennale, within the 2014 Now project; Apodemy (2012), a short film on Emigration and the Economic Crisis, commissioned by the Onassis Foundation, and many more.