The Frontline Club

CONFLICT is film in which some of the world’s best conflict photographers recount how they captured their most powerful images by taking us behind the lens and into their lives.

We witness their personal and professional battles to engage with, understand, handle and present all forms of conflict in the hopes of making the world better. Nothing brings you closer to the most important human conflicts of our time.

The screening of the film was followed by a Q&A via Skype with the film’s director Nick Fitzhugh who was joined in conversation by Dr Paul Lowe, director of Photojournalism and Documentary Photography at University of the Arts London and photojournalist Jenny Matthews

CONFLICT searches for the roots of human conflict––from war to domestic violence to gang violence to rape and beyond––and asks whether and in what ways bearing witness can bring an end to conflict. Personal, social, and philosophical, CONFLICT gives color and context to struggles around the world and makes them personal by bringing viewers closer than they’ve ever been.

Baillie Gifford Prize judges Anjana Ahuja (science journalist) and BBC World Service presenter Razia Iqbal discuss judging non-fiction for one of the UK’s most prestigious literary awards, the qualities that make a non-fiction book great and the merits of their chosen winner (announced November 16th 2017). They were joined in conversation with Prize Director Toby Mundy on the difficulties, challenges and joys of the judging process for this award.

Anjana Ahuja is a freelance science journalist and a Contributing Writer at the Financial Times, where she is best known for her regular opinion columns. She has also contributed to Newsnight and made documentaries for BBC Radio 4. Prior to that, she was a staff writer at The Times for 16 years. In 2010, Anjana co-authored Selected, a book on the evolution of human leadership. She is a current trustee of the charity Sense about Science and a former school governor. She has a PhD in space physics from Imperial College London.

Razia Iqbal is one of the main presenters of Newshour, the flagship news and current affairs programme on BBC World Service. She also regularly presents The World Tonight on BBC Radio 4. She was the BBC's arts correspondent for a decade, covering arts and culture for radio and television news. She also presented Talking Books on BBC World TV: an in depth interview programme with leading writers. Razia has been a journalist with the BBC for nearly three decades, and has worked as a political reporter, and as a foreign correspondent in Pakistan and Sri Lanka. Most recently, she has covered the 2016 Presidential campaign in the US; the Turkish elections and travelled in India and Pakistan making programmes for radio and television. She was born in Uganda, Kampala and moved to London as a child.

Toby Mundy is Executive Director of the Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction. In 2000 he founded Atlantic Books, where he was Chief Executive and Publisher until 2014, when he left to start literary agency TMA Limited. He is also chair of trustees of Wimbledon BookFest, a registered charity; a partner at the management and communications consultancy Jericho Chambers and chair of the advisory board of The Sunday Times EFG Short Story Award.

It’s one of the trickiest legal and ethical questions of the modern age: should terrorists be denied their human rights in the interest of security? Should they simply be treated as rights-less? Come hear an in depth discussion of this vital contemporary matter, from a legal, philosophical and practical perspective.

This event is part of the Brunel University London ‘Knowing Our Rights’ research project.

Chair – Roy Greenslade

Roy Greenslade is one of Britain’s foremost media teachers. He is a leading commentator and columnist on the media, and currently blogs for The Guardian. As a journalist he rose to the highest levels of management in a career taking in The Sun, the Sunday Times, and culminating in the editorship of the Daily Mirror.

Speakers

Professor Anthony Glees – Director at the Centre for Security and Intelligence Studies, University of Buckingham.

Anthony Glees is a Professor of Politics at the University of Buckingham and directs its Centre for Security and Intelligence Studies. He has a specialist concern with Security and Intelligence Issues and has written and lectured on a range of these issues, from the British Intelligence, the Stasi, to terrorism and counter-terrorism. He is a member of the international advisory boards of the Centre of Policing, Intelligence and Counter-Terrorism at Macquarie University, Australia the Asia-Pacific Foundation in London, the Research Institute for European and American Studies in Athens, Greece and the Oxford Intelligence Group. He is a member of the Editorial Board of Intelligence and National Security and The Journal for Policing, Intelligence and Counter-Terrorism and the Advisory Board of The Journal of Intelligence Ethics.

Pat Magee – a former IRA member

Pat Magee was jailed for his part in the 1984 bombing of the Grand Hotel, Brighton, and released in 1999 under the Good Friday Agreement.

Professor Will Self – Writer. Brunel University London

Will Self is the author of nine novels, six collections of short stories, three novellas and six non-fiction works; he is a prolific journalist and a frequent broadcaster. His fiction has won various awards – as has his journalism. His 2002 novel Dorian, an Imitation was longlisted for the Booker Prize, and his novel Umbrella was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize. His fiction has been translated into over 22 languages, and he contributes to publications in Europe and the US as well as the UK.

Tasnime Akunjee – Lawyer

Tasnime is a solicitor working in the field of Complex Crime with a focus on Terrorism and Terrorism related offending. He has been engaged in the field of defence work from 1999 onwards. In addition to his normal activities as a lawyer, Tasnime also negotiates the release and resettlement of individuals caught up in the conflict in Syria. He has written papers and contributed to research and analysis academically on the subject of Isis as well as the government’s ‘Prevent’ policy.

“War is back in cities … civilians are in the middle of it all once again.” – Anthony Beevor

A new ICRC, report called ‘I Saw My City Die’ found that between 2010 and 2015, nearly half of all civilian war deaths worldwide occurred in Syria, Iraq and Yemen. The majority of these deaths have taken place in cities: Mosul, Aleppo and Taiz. Join our panel to discuss the emerging trend of War in Cities, with comparative studies of different cities and nations, over recent years.

“Over the past three years, our research shows that wars in cities accounted for a shocking 70% of all civilian deaths in Iraq and Syria”, said the ICRC’s Regional Director for the Middle East, Robert Mardini. “This illustrates just how deadly these battles have become. This is all the more alarming as offensives get underway in cities like Raqqa in Syria, or intensify in Mosul, Iraq. A new scale of urban suffering is emerging, where no one and nothing is spared by the violence.”

The conflicts in these countries have resulted in internal displacement and migration levels unprecedented since WWII. More than 17 million Iraqis, Syrians and Yemenis have fled their homes. And these battles risk becoming even more protracted if real political solutions are not found soon. Wars in cities are so devastating because of the way in which they are being fought. Armed parties are failing to distinguish between military objectives and civilian infrastructure – or worse, they are using or directly targeting them.

Chair

Nawal Al-Maghafi is an award-winning film journalist specialising on the Middle East. She has worked for BBC Newsnight, BBC World, Middle East Eye and Reuters amongst others. She has reported extensively from Yemen, focusing on the humanitarian situation and the West’s involvement in the conflict. Al-Maghafi was nominated for a Frontline Club Award 2017 for her film covering the human cost of the war in Yemen.

Speakers

Pawel Krzysiek has been working in communications in Syria for much of the war for the ICRC, much of his work has been to cross the frontline of war zones, into besieged towns. He is a primary contributor to this report covering the section on Syria.

Joshua Baker is a documentary filmmaker and a journalist and a contributor to the ICRC Report focusing on the section of ‘Mosul’. Baker was on the frontline with Iraqi special forces as they pushed into civilian neighbourhoods during the battle for Mosul. He witnessed first-hand how civilians were being caught up in the fighting, particularly when a suicide bomb detonated right in front of him. He began his career in print working for The Times as Foreign News Night Editor.

Roland Oliphant is a Senior Foreign correspondent to the Telegraph and until recently covered Russia and the former Soviet Union from the Moscow bureau. He has reported on the Ukrainian revolution and civil war from Kiev, Crimea, and Eastern Ukraine.

Iona Craig is an independent Irish-British journalist. Her work currently focuses on Yemen and the Arabian Peninsula. Iona lived in Sana’a from 2010 to 2015 as The Times (of London) Yemen correspondent. She continues to travel back and forth from the country to report on the conflict and deteriorating humanitarian crisis. In June 2014 she won the UK’s most prestigious investigative journalism award, The Martha Gellhorn Prize.

Albina Kovalyova is Television correspondent and producer covering Russia, Ukraine, CIS for FSN and Channel 4 News. Kovalyova has just returned from East Ukraine after doing a report on the impact of fighting on civilian life in front line towns in the country.

The so-called Alt-Right – a term recently added to the Merriam Webster dictionary – have been described as a disparate group of provocateurs that hate political correctness and love Donald Trump. Their critics say they’re nothing but bigoted white nationalists who amplify fake news and disrupt global elections.

Using fringe social media platforms like 4chan, an anarchic and anonymous message board, and automated accounts on Twitter, they have been credited with rallying support for Donald Trump, spreading the story of French President Emmanuel Macron’s leaked emails ahead of this year’s French elections and some argue the rise of the AfD party in Germany.

But who is behind this movement, what do they want? Are they gaining an outsized influence on global politics? Join us for a panel discussion, analysing the varying impact the movement has had in the US and across Europe, as well as the increasing splinter groups straying from the umbrella of the Alt-Right, and the future of the movement.

Chair

Mike Wendling is a reporter, radio journalist and author of the forthcoming book “Alt-Right: From 4chan to the White House” (Pluto Press, April 2018). He works within the BBC’s Digital Current Affairs department, where he is a blogger and editor at the BBC’s experimental social news unit, BBC Trending. He’s produced and presented dozens of documentaries for Radio 4 and the World Service about US politics including the series America’s Own Extremists, and programmes about Native Americans and the Black Lives Matter movement.

Speakers

Megha Mohan is a presenter/reporter at the BBC’s social news unit BBC Trending. There, she has reported and field produced on subcultures on the internet across Africa, the US and Europe. This has included on the War on Drugs and online rise of President Duterte in the Philippines, livestreaming in China, meme culture in India, and the spread of propaganda and misinformation in Burundi. She has been part of award winning teams for the BBC World Service such as Newshour, World Have Your Say and World Update. She regularly appears on BBC News TV to discuss social media trends. Prior joining the BBC, she spent extensive time working for NGOs in the Great Lakes in Africa.

J. Lester Feder is a senior world correspondent with BuzzFeed News, now based in London focusing on nationalist movements. He has covered human rights issues around the world since joining BuzzFeed News in 2013. In 2015, he was named Journalist of the Year by theNational Lesbian and Gay Journalist Association in the United States for his reporting on fights over LGBT rights from places including the Vatican, Uganda, and the former Soviet Union. Before joining BuzzFeed News, Feder covered the Obama administration and Congress for Politico in Washington.

Dr Joe Mulhall is Senior Researcher at HOPE not hate. Formerly he was a visiting lecturer at Royal Holloway, University of London where he also he completed his PhD on the postwar far right.

Patrik Hermansson is a researcher of far-right extremism at HOPE not Hate. He has a MSc from LSE and a degree in Political Science from Uppsala University in Sweden. He recently came out of a one-year infiltration of the international Alternative Right for HOPE not hate, which was featured in a New York Times exclusive and is being made into a documentary film, My Year In Kekistan.

HOPE not hate is a unique type of anti-fascist and anti-extremist organisation. For the past 14 years, they’ve been leading the fight against fascists and extremists internationally – using a potent blend of research, undercover operatives and public engagement to close down the space white supremacists and racists operate in.

A Q&A with the film makers Josh Bullock and Tom Martienssen in conversation with writer and broadcast journalist Simon Parker. Josh and Tom discuss their new film, Gaucho: the Last Cowboys of Patagonia.

GAUCHO is an evocation of a dying way of life and a portrait of a true original, Heraldo Rial, an eighty-year-old cattle rancher who embodies the traditional ranching culture of his Patagonian ancestors. ‘Gauchos’ are proud, self-reliant cowboys living on the edge of the known world in an immense land virtually untouched by man. Grazing their herds in glacial valleys under mountain peaks and along trout-filled rivers and lakes, it is a way of life virtually unchanged in centuries: hard, beautiful and dangerous.

Film Credits

Directors: Tom Martienssen & Josh Bullock

Executive Producer: Josh Bullock

Commissioner: CNN’s Great Big Story

On Monday 1st October the Catalonian Government claimed that 90% of those who voted in their referendum, chose to split from Spain. 2.26 million Catalans out of a population of 5.34 million voters turned out to take part in this highly controversial vote. Join our panel of experts to discuss what will happen next for the region as the events unfold.

Please note that Raphael Minder joined the debate via skype. Due to poor audio quality his words have been removed from this recording.

Chair

Tom Burridge was the BBC Spain correspondent before recently moving back to London. He has been in Barcelona covering the referendum since the events began. Tom has worked as a correspondent for the BBC across Europe and Africa. Before this he was based in the Ukraine, and covered the war in Donbass in 2014.

Speakers

John Carlin is a journalist and writer who deals with both sports and politics among other things. Carlin began his career writing in Mexico and Central America for publications such as The Times, The Sunday Times and The Toronto Star. From 1995–1998 he was the United States bureau chief for The Independent on Sunday. In August 2008, Carlin published the book Playing the Enemy: Nelson Mandela and the Game that Made a Nation. Carlin won the 2000 El País Ortega y Gasset Award for journalism. He has won numerous other awards for his writing in Spain and Italy.

Professor Mireia Jofre-Bonet is Director of the MSc in Health Economics and the MSc in Economic Evaluation in Healthcare at City, University of London. She is a Senior Associated Researcher at LSE Health (London School of Economics and Political Sciences) and belongs to the London International Development Centre. Prior to joining City, Professor Jofre-Bonet was a Lecturer at LSHTM, a Research Faculty member at the School of Public Health at Yale University, and taught at the Departments of Economics at the London School of Economics and at Yale University.

Surprising many, and putting other countries to shame, China has taken significant steps to close its legal domestic ivory market in the past year. This is a positive move by a country with one of the biggest ivory markets in the world. However, there remain serious issues surrounding the ongoing involvement of Chinese criminal syndicates in the illegal ivory trade, which remains the main threat to Africa’s elephants.

In 2016, Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) embarked on a yearlong undercover investigation into the murky world of ivory trafficking in Mozambique in Africa. These investigations revealed a Chinese-led criminal syndicate which for over two decades has been trafficking ivory from Africa to Shuidong, their hometown in southern China. The traffickers claimed that up to 80 per cent of all African elephant tusks were destined for Shuidong town.

This panel discussion and Q&A will focus on the connections between corruption, criminality and the illegal ivory trade, the impacts of EIA’s investigations in China and Africa, and the responses so far from the Chinese government. Voices from the frontline will give a unique insight into how EIA uncovered this ivory trafficking syndicate and the risks this entailed.

Dr Sam Geall is executive editor of chinadialogue.net and an associate fellow at Chatham House. His research focuses on low-carbon innovation, environmental governance, media and civil society in China. He edited China and the Environment: The Green Revolution (Zed Books, 2013). Sam’s writing has appeared in many leading publications, including BBC Chinese, the Guardian, Foreign Policy, Index on Censorship and Nikkei Asian Review. Sam was formerly departmental lecturer in Human Geography of China at the University of Oxford.

Mary Rice has been with EIA since 1996, joining as a volunteer before holding positions including Head of Communications & Projects, Head of Development and Head of Campaigns. She has been Executive Director since 2008 and is responsible for directing the long-term strategic management of EIA as well as working on specific projects and leading the Elephant Campaign.

Julian Newman joined EIA in July 1997 as an investigator after working as a journalist for six years. He has carried out field investigations into illegal logging in Indonesia, China, Malaysia, Vietnam and Laos, and wildlife crime investigations in Tanzania, Zambia, Singapore and China. He has also been involved in training local NGOs in Indonesia and Tanzania. Since 2008 he has been Campaigns Director.

Deborah Davies is part of the award winning Al Jazeera Investigative Unit. Their 2016 film, The Poacher’s Pipeline, used undercover filming to infiltrate the illegal supply chain of rhino horn from South Africa to China. The film caused a massive political storm when one of the Chinese criminals showed photographs of “his good friend”, South Africa’s Minister of State Security, David Mahlobo. As an investigative reporter, Deborah has a long track record of breaking exclusives including the first ever film about Osama bin Laden, exposing Iraqi death squads and the 1997 film naming top level football coaches who had sexually abused young players, a story which exploded back into the headlines last year.

Since President Xi Jin Ping came to power 4 years ago, hundreds of Chinese citizens have vanished on the orders of the Communist government, under the guise of anti-corruption leads. These are frequently followed by public confessions from high-profile figures. The Frontline Club, in partnership with Christian Solidarity Worldwide hosted Grace Gao, and Angela Gui as part of a panel discussion to share their personal experiences of the mysterious disappearances of both their activist fathers. Joining the discussion are journalists Isabel Hilton, and Ben Bland to explore the ongoing trend of disappearances, forced confessions, and widespread state surveillance both on China’s mainland and in Hong Kong.

Grace Gao

Grace Gao is daughter to Gao Zhisheng – a prominent Chinese human rights lawyer who is best known for his work defending Christians, Falun Gong adherents, and other vulnerable social groups. As a result of his work on ‘sensitive’ cases and his open letters to Chinese political leaders, he was subject to numerous incidences of enforced disappearance and torture before being convicted of ‘inciting to subvert state power’. After three years in prison, he was released on 7 August 2014 with serious health problems, and has been under effective house arrest. Since mid August 2017, he has been missing again. Gao has authored a comprehensive report detailing human rights abuses and related social issues in China in the year 2016. This is the first comprehensive human rights commentary written by a human rights lawyer still living in China and his commentary covers a wide range of human rights abuses, including violations of the right to freedom of religion or belief, abuses in Tibet and Xinjiang and the situation of lawyers and human rights defenders. Grace has worked tirelessly, raising awareness of her father’s situation and wider human rights issues in China.

Angela Gui

Angela Gui is the daughter of the Hong Kong bookseller Gui Minhai who is believed to have been abducted by Chinese agents in Thailand in late 2015. Gui was one of the five men who vanished in a spate of incidents known as the Causeway Bay Bookstore Disappearances. It is believed he was targeted due to his work as a publisher specialising in books critical of the Chinese Communist Party. Gui resurfaced months later in a detention centre in China, and was made to publicly confess to crimes on Chinese state television. There has been no presentation of charges or conclusive evidence for his alleged crimes. Angela is a PhD candidate at the University of Cambridge, and has been campaigning for her father’s release since he went missing.

Event Description and Speaker Bios:

https://www.frontlineclub.com/the-rohingya-people-a-slow-burning-genocide/

Programme Notes:

04:40

2015 Rohingya Report

http://statecrime.org/data/2015/10/ISCI-Rohingya-Report-PUBLISHED-VERSION.pdf

07:20

2016 - United Nations Human Rights Office of the High Commissioner

http://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Countries/MM/FlashReport3Feb2017.pdf

08:40

Wikipedia - Burmese Way to Socialism

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burmese_Way_to_Socialism

09:40

Wikipedia - Theravada Buddhism

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theravada

11:50

NYTimes - Obama Lifts Some Sanctions Against Myanmar

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/02/us/politics/obama-lifts-sanctions-myanmar.html

12:30

Facebook - Senior General Min Aung Lhaing

https://www.facebook.com/seniorgeneralminaunghlaing/posts/1737702306264250

12:45

Newsweek - The Rohingya Genocide Has Begun in Earnest

http://www.newsweek.com/rohingya-genocide-has-begun-earnest-530283

15:45

International State Crime Initiative - Genocide of Rohingya in Myanmar may be entering new and deadly phase

http://statecrime.org/state-crime-research/isci-press-release-genocide-of-rohingya-in-myanmar-may-be-entering-new-and-deadly-phase/

17:30

Wikipedia - Kristallnacht

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kristallnacht

17:45

Wikipedia - 2012 Rakhine State Riots

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_Rakhine_State_riots

19:15

Time - These Aren't Refugee Camps, They're Concentration Camps, and People Are Dying in Them

http://time.com/2888864/rohingya-myanmar-burma-camps-sittwe/

20:25

Council on Foreign Relations - Doctors without Borders Kicked out of Rakhine State; Hatred Rising

https://www.cfr.org/blog/doctors-without-borders-kicked-out-rakhine-state-hatred-rising

22:35

The Atlantic - The Rohingya in Bangladesh: The Fastest-Growing Refugee Emergency in the World

https://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2017/10/the-rohingya-in-bangladesh-the-fastest-growing-refugee-emergency-in-the-world/543417/

24:25

Instagram - Anastasia Taylor-Lind

https://www.instagram.com/p/BZ0OpUBlO8d/?taken-by=anastasiatl

25:30

Reuters - U.N. brands Myanmar violence a 'textbook' example of ethnic cleansing

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-myanmar-rohingya/u-n-brands-myanmar-violence-a-textbook-example-of-ethnic-cleansing-idUSKCN1BM0QF

27:20

Wikipedia - Ethnic Cleansing

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnic_cleansing

28:00

Wikisource - Genocide Treaty

https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Convention_on_the_Prevention_and_Punishment_of_the_Crime_of_Genocide

28:00

NYTimes - On Language: Ethnic Cleansing

http://www.nytimes.com/1993/03/14/magazine/on-language-ethnic-cleansing.html

33:00

Newsweek - How we were seduced by Aung San Suu Kyi

http://www.newsweek.com/how-we-were-seduced-aung-san-suu-kyi-669517

36:30

Wikipedia - IDP (Internally Displaced Person)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internally_displaced_person

38:30

Irrawaddy - Wirathu Visits Conflict Torn Northern Rakhine

https://www.irrawaddy.com/news/burma/wirathu-visit-conflict-torn-northern-rakhine.html

39:05

World Food Programme - FOOD SECURITY ASSESSMENT IN THE NORTHERN PART OF RAKHINE STATE

https://docs.wfp.org/api/documents/WFP-0000019264/download/

47:20

The Stateless Rohingya - UN Commission of Inquiry for Myanmar

http://www.thestateless.com/2017/03/un-commission-of-inquiry-for-myanmar.html

47:40

The Guardian - Myanmar refuses visas to UN team investigating abuse of Rohingya Muslims

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jun/30/myanmar-refuses-visas-un-abuse-rohingya-muslims

50:55

Human Rights Watch - Submission to the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee on the Rohingya Crisis in Burma

https://www.hrw.org/news/2017/10/24/submission-us-senate-foreign-relations-committee-rohingya-crisis-burma

58:50

Human Rights Watch - Burma: Satellite Imagery Shows Mass Destruction

https://www.hrw.org/news/2017/09/19/burma-satellite-imagery-shows-mass-destruction