The Frontline Club

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October 18, 2011 7:00 PM

EXTERNAL EVENT HELD AT THE ROYAL INSTITUTION OF GREAT BRITAIN

IN ASSOCIATION WITH BBC ARABIC

With leaders toppled in Tunisia and Egypt, continuing uprisings in Syria, Yemen and Bahrain, the Arab world has seen tumultuous change in recent months. Where does all this upheaval leave Israel? We will be focusing on the response of Israel to the revolutions sweeping across the Middle East and North Africa.

With a panel of Israeli experts and journalists we will explore how Israel and its people view the demands for democracy which are ousting friends in the region such as President Hosni Mubarak.

What happens to the peace process now? We will be discussing Israel’s position on Gaza and the West Bank in the light of changes taking place in the Arab world and of recent events.

Chaired by Samir Farah, one of BBC Arabic’s leading presenters and interviewers. He is the lead presenter of Nuqtat Hewar, BBC Arabic television’s flagship interactive programme and one of the most important interactive programmes in Arabic media. He has led a pioneering series of live interactive interviews with leading personalities across the Arab world, putting politicians and decision-makers directly before a live audience to answer questions and defend their policies. He is also the Deputy Head of Programmes for BBC Arabic TV. Twitter: @Samir_Farah

With:

Ambassador Yitzhak Lior joined Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 1964. In 1967 he was a member of Israel’s Delegation to the Middle-East Peace Conference in Geneva. From 1968 – 81 he did four tours of duty in the U.S: Chicago, New York, Houston and Washington. In Beirut from 1982 – 84 he was head of Israel’s mission to Lebanon (peace negotiations). In 1987 he was appointed deputy director general of the Foreign Ministry for Middle East Affairs. He served as the ambassador to the UN in Geneva from 1990 – 95 and the ambassador to Tokyo from 2000 – 04.

Daphna Baram worked in Jerusalem as a human rights lawyer, and later as a reporter, news editor and deputy editor in chief of the Jerusalem Based weekly Kol Hair. During fellowships with the Reuters Foundation and a period as a senior associate member at St Antony College, Oxford, she had written her book Disenchantment: The Guardian and Israel (published 2004). Her articles on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict were published by the Guardian, the Independent and the New Statesman, among others. She provided commentary for Al Jazeera, the BBC and other news outlets. She works for GRNlive in London as an editor. Twitter: @DaphnaBaram

Eldad Beck, the Berlin-based Europe Correspondent for Israel’s most widely circulated newspaper Yedioth Ahronot. He is a former foreign affairs editor for Israel’s Haaretz newspaper. He has also worked as a Vienna based Correspondent for Israel’s Maariv newspaper. He has served as a Paris-based Correspondent for Israel’s Channel 2 Television station, The Jerusalem Post, Globes; Hadashot and The Jerusalem Report. In Paris, he worked as the Editor and Moderator at Radio Shalom and a Journalist at „L´Arche“. Beck studied at the Sorbonne University, majoring in Arabic and Islamic studies. During the Oslo process, he served as a correspondent for Arabic affairs on Gali-Zahl Radio Station in Israel. Most recently, Beck has published a book entitled Behind the Border documenting his visits to places such as Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Iran, Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Miri Weingarten, a Jewish Israeli, has worked for Israeli human rights group Physicians for Human Rights-Israel (PHR-Israel) since 1999. Based in London since 2009, she currently conducts advocacy/lobby for a coalition of three Israel-based human rights groups – PHR-Israel, Adalah and the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel, in the EU (Brussels) and the UN (Geneva). She also d

July 18, 2012 7:00 PM

Renowned Arab journalist Yosri Fouda will be joining us in conversation with senior BBC presenter and special correspondent Lyse Doucet for this special event, post elections we will be asking what lies ahead for the people of Egypt and its new leader.

Fouda, who was editor and presenter of Last Word on Cairo-based ONTV, said there had been “a noticeable deterioration in media freedoms when he announced he would be “indefinitely suspending” his show in October last year.

Following the presidential elections Fouda who chaired Egypt’s first presidential debate will be discussing events in Egypt in the 17 months since the toppling of president Hosni Mubarak and his hopes for the country post elections.

Yosri Fouda began his career at the BBC’s Arabic-subsidiary and was chief investigative reporter and executive producer for Al Jazeera. He is the co-author of Masterminds of Terror: The Truth Behind the Most Devastating Attack The World Has Ever Seen.

February 24, 2012 7:00 PM

The response of President Bashar Assad to the protests in Syria has been to launch a brutal crack down on his opponents that has reportedly led to the deaths of an estimated 6,000 people.

As the violence intensifies in the wake of the veto by Russia and China of the U.N. Security Council’s resolution condemning the violence, we will be discussing what options are now available to the people of Syria, the Free Syrian Army and President Bashar al-Assad and his regime.

What role should the international community play in the face this deepening crisis? Should the Arab League put more pressure on President Assad to cease the bombardment of rebel-held areas? What of the rest of the people of Syria, where does their support lie?

Chaired by BBC Arabic presenter Rasha Qandeel.

With:

Dr Mouna Ghanem, a Syrian politician and vice president of the Syrian political movement “building the Syrian state”. She is also a senior gender advisor with an extensive experience in the Arab region, mainly on women issues and reproductive health.

Ammar Waqqaf, member of the Syrian Social Club (a group of British Syrians and Syrians living in the UK, who prefer regime reform, rather than regime change.)

Ramita Navai, British-Iranian journalist and reporter for Channel 4′s foreign affairs series, Unreported World. Late last year she spent two weeks living undercover in Syria with members of the opposition movement.

Malik Al-Abdeh, chief editor of Barada TV a London-based Syrian opposition satellite channel and former BBC journalist.

May 15, 2012 7:00 PM

In a year of unrest that began with the Arab spring and spread to Russia and the Ukraine, the spotlight has been on the role of the internet and social media in challenging power elites and their capacity to control what the outside world sees.

But as with China, the use of social media also raised questions about the relationship between the big global companies like Facebook, Twitter and Google with not only the activists who used them, but also with the regimes they were challenging.

We saw too that decisions made in the US and Europe about mobile phone security levels and government access to social media sites had consequences for those who were tracked down and imprisoned not only in Egypt but also in Iran.

As westerners face greater surveillance in the name of security, including threats of increased controls in the wake of the August 2011 riots, we will be joined by Timothy Garton Ash and a respected panel of experts to discuss what the historian and commentator has set out as the first principle of free speech: That all human beings must be free and able to express themselves, and to receive and impart information and ideas, regardless of frontiers.

Is it time to create a new global code that governs freedom of speech? We will be discussing this vital issue and examining what such a code would include.

Chaired by Sina Motalebi, editor of Persian Online and Interactive at the BBC World Service. He has worked for BBC since 2004 in various capacities including an online editor and director of Iran projects for World Service Trust (now known as Global Media Action), editor of interactivity and Head of Output on BBC Persian TV.

With:

Timothy Garton Ash, the director of Free Speech Debate, a multi-lingual online platform for discussing freedom of expression. He is Professor of European Studies in the University of Oxford, Isaiah Berlin Professorial Fellow at St Antony’s College, Oxford, and a Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University. His essays appear regularly in the New York Review of Books and he writes a weekly column in the Guardian.

Marie Gillespie, Professor of Sociology at The Open University and Co-Director of the Centre for Research on Socio-Cultural Change. She researches transnationalism and diaspora cultures comparatively and historically. Recent projects include an exploration of the new politics of security via a collaborative ethnography of transnational news cultures in eight UK cities, a national survey with the BBC on the changing face of British humour and a large-scale study of the BBC World Service as a multi-diasporic institution. She was recently awarded an AHRC Public Policy Fellowship to assess the potential of social media for opening up transnational political debate, specifically in relation to the BBC Arabic Services.

Khaled Fahmy, professor and chair of American University in Cairo’s Department of History. He is author of several publications including Mehmed Ali: From Ottoman Governor to Ruler of Egypt, All the Pasha’s Men: Mehmed Ali Pasha, His Army and the Founding of Modern Egypt and The Body and Modernity: Essays in the History of Medicine and Law in Modern Egypt.

Kirsty Hughes, the Chief Executive of Index on Censorship – an international freedom of expression non-governmental organisation. She is a commentator on European and international affairs and has worked at Chatham House and written for Friends of Europe and the Centre for European Policy Studies in Brussels. She contributes to international and European media including the BBC, CNN, Al Jazeera, The Huffington Post and others.

Wednesday 12 December 2012, 8.15 PM

EXTERNAL EVENT HELD AT THE LONDON SCHOOL OF ECONOMICS, SHEIKH ZAYED THEATRE

As he is about to embark on his second term, President Barack Obama’s relationship with Israel is already being tested. But while all eyes are on events in Gaza, Obama is facing major decisions that could lead to the beginning of a new conflict.

Israel’s threat of military action against Iran has already raised tensions in the Middle East and in the summer of 2013, the US and its allies will decide whether or not to attack Iran’s nuclear sites and if Israel should be given the go ahead to start a war.

While leaders of these countries continue their brinkmanship, recent and increasingly biting sanctions imposed by the United States and the European Union have had a significant impact, choking the country’s economy and provoking growing unrest on the streets. Iranians are facing ever increasing hardship as a result of the devaluation of the currency, food shortages and lack of medical supplies.

Join us to discuss what the future holds for relations between Iran, Israel and the US in the year ahead.

Chaired by Channel 4 News presenter Jon Snow.

With:

Meir Javedanfar, an Iranian – Israeli Middle East analyst. He teaches the contemporary Iranian politics course at the Interdisciplinary Center (IDC) in Herzliya. He is also the co-author of president Ahmadinejad’s biography The Nuclear Sphinx of Tehran and a regular contributor to The Diplomat, Al Monitor, as well as BBC Persian.

Azadeh Moaveni, a former Middle East correspondent for Time magazine, and has reported on Iran since 1999. She is the author of Lipstick Jihad, Honeymoon in Tehran, and co-author, with Nobel Peace Laureate Shirin Ebadi, of Iran Awakening. She writes widely on Iran and the Middle East for Foreign Policy, the Washington Post, and other publications.

Scott Peterson, the Istanbul Bureau Chief for The Christian Science Monitor, a photographer for Getty Images and author of Let the Swords Encircle Me: Iran – A Journey Behind the Headlines. He has reported and photographed conflict and human narratives across three continents for more than two decades, which include thirty extended reporting trips to Iran since 1996.

Abdel Bari Atwan, the editor of London-based al-Quds al-Arabi, an independent, pan-Arab daily newspaper since 1989. He is the author of The Secret History of al-Qa’ida, A Country of Words, his memoir and his new book Al-Qa’ida, the Next Generation. He was born in Gaza but has lived in London since 1979.

Oct 23rd, 2012

In Iran it is reported that the government are building a national intranet that adheres to Islamic values and is isolated from the World Wide Web, in the UK the government is proposing a communications bill that will see an increase in monitoring of emails and social media by the police and intelligence agencies'.

Authoritarian states have long seen the freedom of the internet as a threat and have tried to restrict it, but recent develops suggest a move towards increased tracking and control of what the public do and see online across the world.

With companies' interests lying in the commercial gains of data and governments' in the ability to monitor populations, join us as we ask to whose hands internet governance should be entrusted.

Chaired by Kirsty Hughes, the Chief Executive of Index on Censorship - an international freedom of expression non-governmental organisation. Previously she has worked at Chatham House, IPPR, the European Commission and most recently she was head of Global Public Policy and Advocacy at Oxfam and Senior Associate Fellow at the Centre for International Studies, University of Oxford. Twitter: @IndexCensorship

With:

Birgitta Jónsdóttir MP, a member of the Icelandic Parliament for The Movement and chairperson of the International Modern Media Institution. She has worked as a volunteer for various organisations including WikiLeaks, Saving Iceland and Friends of Tibet in Iceland. Prior to becoming an MP she has been an activist, writer, first icelandic woman to work as web developer and publisher. Twitter: @birgittaj

Jacob Appelbaum, an accomplished photographer, software hacker and world traveler. He works as a developer for The Tor Project and trains interested parties globally on how to effectively use and contribute to the Tor network. He is a founding member of the hacklab Noisebridge in San Francisco where he indulges his interests in magnetics, cryptography and consensus based governance. He was a driving force in the team behind the creation of the Cold Boot Attacks; winning both the Pwnie for Most Innovative Research award and the Usenix Security best student paper award in 2008. Additionally, he was part of the MD5 Collisions Inc. team that created a rogue CA certificate by using a cluster of 200 PlayStations funded by the Swiss taxpayers. The "MD5 considered harmful today" research was awarded the best paper award at CRYPTO 2009. Twitter: @ioerror

Karl Kathuria, an independent media technology consultant, specialising in Internet distribution and streaming media. Prior to this, he spent over 10 years at the BBC, managing the distribution of World Service Internet content to a global audience. In this role, he faced the challenge of delivering news content into countries where censorship is prevalent. As a result of these efforts, he was invited to the Munk School of Global Affairs in Toronto to work with the Citizen Lab team in 2011 on an independent research project. During this period, he studied the effects of the BBC's content distribution strategies in China and Iran, and made recommendations for the propagation of circumvention software into these markets. His current projects include working with Psiphon Inc., the Canadian provider of network software aimed at preserving security, privacy, and access to content that may otherwise be blocked.

Dr Ian Brown, associate Director at the Cyber Security Centre and Senior Research Fellow at Oxford Internet Institute (OII). His work focuses on public policy issues around information and the Internet, particularly privacy, copyright and e-democracy. He also works in the more technical fields of information security, networking and healthcare informatics. He has consulted for the US Department of Homeland Security, JP Morgan, Credit Suisse, Allianz, McAfee, BT, the BBC, the European Commission, the Cabinet Office, Ofcom, the National Audit Office and the Information Commissioner's Office.

April 13, 2011 7:00 PM

Videos that were circulated after the fall of President Hosni Mubarak showing state TV bosses being chased out of their offices and journalist strikes appeared to herald a new era in Egypt.

In Libya, hackers have attacked the state broacaster's website and scenes of people throwing their shoes at the screen in a mark of disrespect are reported to have taken place in Libya as they did in Egypt and other countries where the media is regarded as an instrument of government.

The state-controlled TV channels, radio, newspapers and magazines were re-casting themselves as champions of radical change, while just days before the protestors in Tahrir Square had been ignored or denounced.

But can a leopard change its spots? Already there has been criticism of Egyptian broadcasters and newspapers for stirring up xenophobia and for remaining hostile to the pro-democracy movements.

What is required in order that a genuine revolution takes place in the media - not only in Egypt but in other countries where autocrats have used it to bolster their power? What happens in countries such as Iran where control of the media remains absolute?

Join us at the Frontline Club when we will be discussing what the future holds for state media, the impact of channels such as Al Jazeera and BBC Arabic, and the ways that people are using the internet and other social media to circumvent that power.

The discussion will be chaired by author and broadcaster Tom Fenton.

With:

Faisal J. Abbas, London-based journalist, blogger and social commentator. He writes regularly for Huffington Post on Middle Eastern affairs and has worked with several leading Arab media outlets such as Asharq Al Awsat, where he established and edited the paper's weekly 'Media Supplement', Al Hayat and Future Television of Lebanon;

Dina Matar, senior lecturer in Arab Media and Political Communication at SOAS;

Hugh Miles, award-winning investigative journalist specialising in the Middle East and North Africa, author of Al Jazeera: How Arab TV News Challenged the World and Playing Cards in Cairo and contributing editor of the American University in Cairo's Centre for Television Journalism media journal;

Ayman Mohyeldin, Middle East-based correspondent for Al Jazeera English.

Wednesday 27 February 2013, 7:00 PM

A year ago, in the midst of the uprisings across the Arab world, when the news agenda was moving at a relentless pace, we brought together a group of journalists to talk about the practicalities of life as a freelance foreign correspondent.

One year on, we take stock of the opportunities, challenges and risks that we have seen for freelancers. Should inexperienced freelancers be deterred from heading straight to conflict zones, or should training, insurance and guidance be more freely available?

In a recent piece for BBC College of Journalism Stuart Hughes writes about the risks being taken by inexperienced freelancers. As more and more choose to cut their teeth in the field rather than in local newsrooms, Hughes will be joining us with a panel of journalists and editors to discuss what precautions need to be taken to keep them safe.

Chaired by Stuart Hughes is a senior world affairs producer with BBC News. He has worked in international news for more than a decade. Working alongside some of the BBC's most respected correspondents, he has covered major news events around the world, including the 9/11 attacks, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the Middle East conflict and the Arab Spring.

The panel:

Aris Roussinos is a freelance journalist, filmmaker and television news producer. Over the past two years, he has reported from Libya, Bahrain, Tunisia, Greece and Sudan.

Julia Macfarlane is a freelance journalist working in Asia and the Middle East, having most recently freelanced in Lebanon for an independent documentary and BBC News as well as blogging on the Middle East for the Independent.

Hannah Storm is the director of the International News Safety Institute (INSI). Before joining INSI she worked as both a freelancer and a staff journalist for a number of broadcasters and news organisations, including ITN, Reuters, the BBC and The Times.

Colin Pereira, head of safety and security at ITN, he is responsible for the security of ITN operations in high risk environments. Previously he was deputy head of the BBC High Risk Team. He has advised on thousands of deployments around the world, ranging from the London riots to deploying crews to downtown Mogadishu. He is also head of high risk for 1st Option Safety, specialising in production and freelance safety

May 31, 2011 7:00 PM

As many established media organisations are forced to cut back on their foreign bureaux, new opportunities are emerging for a new type of foreign correspondent - the independent multimedia journalist.

But if the days of the foreign press pack who parachute in for a big story are numbered, what are the opportunities for this new generation of journalists and how can they make the most of them?

This event will seek to answer some of the questions raised during previous discussions about the changing nature of foreign reporting - namely "How do I do it?".

We'll be bringing together a panel of experts to talk about their experiences of reporting, including kit, the realities of going it alone, and working relationships with the established news organisations.

This event is in association with the BBC College of Journalism

Chaired by Matthew Eltringham, editor of the BBC College of Journalism website and events.

With:

Vaughan Smith, independent video journalist, co-founder of Frontline Television News agency a group of freelance journalists who reported from the frontlines of the world's conflict from 1989 - 2003 following which in he founded the Frontline Club;

Ben de Pear, is Head of foreign news at channel 4 news. Before taking up this position he was a field producer for Chanel 4 and Sky news, and has worked all over Africa the middle east and the Balkans. He has been part of teams that have won numerous awards including last weeks Amnesty award for TV- for the third year in a row. The winning story which depicted executions in Sri Lanka was today cited by the UN as reflecting "crimes of the highest order- definitive war crimes."

Kitty Logan, independent video journalist and TV reporter specialising in coverage of developing countries and areas of conflict. Over the past nine years she has covered foreign news for several major broadcasters, including Sky News. She also regularly films for international aid agencies and the UN. She began her freelance career in Afghanistan in 2002 and has since worked in many other countries, including Pakistan, Iraq, Lebanon and most recently Libya as a self-contained 'one-woman-band' -- producing packages and lives for a 24 hour news channel. Kitty Logan uses a simple setup of camera, edit laptop and BGAN to allow her to operate solo from anywhere in the world.

Rosie Garthwaite, producer and occasional reporter at Al Jazeera English since 2006, she spent a year in the army in 1999 and went on to report on their activities as a cub reporter at 22 years old freelancing in Iraq. She has worked for The Baghdad Bulletin, Times, Reuters and BBC in Basra and Baghdad before going on to join the BBC as staff in 2004. She is author of How to avoid being killed in a war zone: The essential survival guide for dangerous places, a collection of practical advice from journalists and operators including John Simpson, Sebastian Junger, Jon Snow and Wadah Khanfar.

Featuring a presentation by Graham Holliday, independent freelance foreign correspondent, media trainer and online journalism specialist. He started freelancing in Vietnam, where he was based for ten years. He later worked for Scoopt, the worlds' first citizen journalism photo agency and as the Frontline Club's Digital Media Editor. He moved to Kigali, Rwanda in August 2009 where he runs the newswire and blog Kigali Wire. He recently appeared on the BBC World Service programme From our own Correspondent.

June 15, 2011 7:00 PM When more details about the News of the World phone hacking scandal were revealed earlier this year, there were calls for greater regulation of the press. At least 90 well known public figures allegedly had their voicemails listened to by journalists at the paper, prompting a discussion about celebrities' right to privacy.

At the same time, the use of super-injunctions (or 'gagging orders') by celebrities to stop the press revealing details about scandals has also been called in to question. The issue, which has been debated heavily in the past, flared up again when details of celebrities who had allegedly taken out super-injunctions were posted on Twitter in May.

Some say super-injunctions are necessary to protect the private lives of public figures, but others argue they are an example of discriminatory justice used predominantly by men who are rich and famous.

Join us at the Frontline Club where we will be focusing on issues of privacy, justice and journalistic ethics and asking if the current system of law and regulation is -- or is not -- in need of reform.

Chaired by Clive Coleman, BBC Legal Affairs Correspondent.

With:

William Bennett, a barrister who specialises in defamation and privacy law. He is based at 5RB, the leading media law chambers;

David Allen Green, a lawyer and writer. He is head of media at Preiskel & Co and was selected as one of the "Hot 100 Lawyers" for 2011 by The Lawyer. He is also legal correspondent of the New Statesman and was shortlisted for the Orwell Prize in 2010 for his "Jack of Kent" blog;

David Aaronovitch, writer, broadcaster, commentator and regular columnist for The Times;

Peter Oborne, the Daily Telegraph's chief political commentator.

In association with BBC College of Journalism.