The Frontline Club

What happens if the psychiatric hospital in which you have lived for ten years is bombed and all the staff run away? What is it like to be a twelve-year-old and see all your family killed in front of you? Is it true that almost everyone caught up in a disaster is likely to suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder?

Dr Lynne Jones has been a psychiatrist working in conflict zones for over 20 years. From treating soldiers in the Bosnian war, to attending to families affected by the Haitian earthquake, or those who lost relatives in the Sri Lankan tsunami, Dr Jones is coming to the Frontline Club to discuss and share her experiences of working in some of the world’s biggest disaster zones. She will be discussing issues such as if there is a right approach to deal with mental health in humanitarian disasters, and is there a different way we approach mental health in crises in third world countries compared to developed ones? Dr Jones’ field diaries have been published in the London Review of Books and her audio diaries broadcast on the BBC World Service.

Joining this discussion is Dr Conor Kenny from Doctors Without Borders. Dr Kenny has been providing healthcare for some of the most vulnerable people in Europe. His first assignment began in Idomeni, a transit camp for refugees on the Greek border with the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. After residents of the Idomeni camp were evicted, Conor moved to Lesbos to work providing healthcare in specialised camps designated for the most vulnerable refugees on the island. The refugees here face a number of medical and psychosocial problems as a result of their extensive journeys that Dr Kenny has been treating.

Moderator – Rob Williams CEO War Child

Rob Williams is Chief Executive of War Child, the UK charity dedicated to supporting children affected by conflict. War Child delivers psychosocial support, child protection, education and livelihoods programmes in a range of countries affected by war including Central African Republic, Yemen, Iraq, Afghanistan, Jordan, and The Democratic Republic of Congo, helping children who have been abused, abducted, displaced or separated from their families. Previously in relief and development Rob has worked for Save the Children, the British Red Cross and Concern Worldwide in Africa and Asia leading country programmes and also managing emergency response. In the UK he has been, at various times, Deputy Children’s Commissioner for England, Chief Executive of Bliss – the premature baby charity, and Chief Executive of the Fatherhood Institute He is married with two children and lives in Cambridge.

Sea of Pictures is a documentary that supports this work. The film focuses on the image of Syrian toddler Alan Kurdi, who was found drowned on a beach in Turkey while trying to reach Europe with his family. This image went viral and became a symbol of the refugee crisis and the widespread international apathy up until that point. His image was seen on newspapers across the globe. But how as a media outlet do you choose which pictures to show to the public? What are the ethics surrounding taking pictures such as these? Can you really control how these pictures are interpreted and repurposed?

The screening will be followed by a debate around these questions. The panelists will discuss how pictures can impact and reshape public discourse and policy, but often in ways that were entirely unintended.

It’s been nearly 2 months since the Grenfell Tower fire. In this time 9 survivors, local residents and volunteers have felt compelled to make a film to dispel the public’s fear from the Lancaster West community and reveal the deep impact this has had on them as people.

The media has covered the story in ways that the local community are not satisfied with, the evening will touch in the disparity between eye witness accounts and the reporting of events as they unfold on national media as well as the dangerous spread of misinformation.

There will be a discussion after the film with the survivors of the tragedy and the film-makers to share their personal accounts of the fire, and how disasters like this are reported in the UK.

Joining the discussion will be the journalist Ed Vulliamy. Growing up in Notting Hill, Vulliamy has written regularly on the ruthless development of the area that has divided those living in West London. He regularly writes for the Guardian.

Watch Channel 4’s excerpt of the film here:

https://www.channel4.com/news/on-the-ground-at-grenfell

Speakers

Survivor 1 and Survivor 2 (cannot be named for legal reasons) lived on the 4th Floor of Grenfell Tower where the fire started.

Shona Harvey lives 5 minutes from Grenfell Tower and went to primary school with Zoe.

Adrianne McKenzie is a freelance film-maker who spent much of her youth in West London. She was making a film about the closure of Stowe Youth Club near to Grenfell Tower when the fire happened. She picked up her camera and began to record events from the first night. Struck by the de-humanisation of the survivors, spending time on the ground has revealed that ‘…no-one’s really talking much about the people apart from what they can be given. So these luxury apartments or £5,000 from the government… No ones really thought about them as people they are just statistics. I feel like the survivors have been forgotten about. People are fighting a lot for the deceased but not as hard for the people who are still here’.

Reece Yeboah lives underneath Grenfell Tower and sees it every morning. He is a fashion designer and young creative pursuing his dreams. He feels if Princess Diana was alive she would have come and helped the people of Grenfell.

Pilgrim Tucker is a community organiser and campaigner. She has many years experience of working on projects aimed at amplifying the voices of local residents, service users and community members, supporting them to organise to influence decisions that affect them. She worked with Grenfell residents in 2015 to help them campaign against the refurbishment undertaken KCTMO and Rydon. Since the fire she has continued to work with residents on the Lancaster west estate that surrounds the tower.

We will be live streaming this event on our Facebook Page

‘Goodbye Aleppo’ is a documentary about a team of four young citizen journalists who film themselves and each other as the battle for Aleppo rages around them in December 2016. They show us what daily life is like in the last days in the east of the city, as the Syrian Army, the Russian and Iran armies, and Iran-backed militias gradually take the city from opposition fighters. The team film in extremely dangerous and life-threatening situations, trapped, bombarded, and encircled with the civilians under siege in East Aleppo. ‘Goodbye Aleppo‘ is a dramatic, emotional, gripping, thoughtful, and unique film that tells the story of the fall of East Aleppo as it has never been seen before, through the personal stories and insights of these four young men.

This film is not just a dramatic, gripping story of one of the most important battles in Syria’s civil war, it is also an important historical document.

The recent call for the closure of Al Jazeera has been a wake up call for the world of journalism. With one of the largest Arab journalistic voices under threat, we hope you'll listen to this panel discussion on these recent events in Qatar, and the wider consequences for the future of  journalism on a global scale. This recording explores how the media outlet is being used as a bargaining chip in an ongoing geopolitical struggle, and the controversies surrounding the Arabic network.

Is this a trend that is repeating itself across the world? Or is Al Jazeera in a unique position?

This recording has not been edited.

---

Chair

Safa Al Ahmad – Safa al-Ahmad is an award-winning Saudi Arabian journalist and filmmaker. She has directed documentaries for PBS and the BBC focusing on uprisings in the Middle East. She is the joint winner of the 2015 Index on Censorship Freedom of Expression Award for Journalism and was a finalist for the 2014 Sony Impact Award.

Speakers

Wadah Khanfar – Ex-Director General Al Jazeera Media Network. Wadah Khanfar, President of the Al Sharq Forum and the former Director General of the Al Jazeera Network. He is widely regarded as one of the most influential intellectual in the Arab world. He now devotes much of his time to Al-Sharq Forum, an independent international Network with a mission to develop long-term strategies to ensure the political stability and economic prosperity of the Arab world and the region. His journalistic journey began with Al Jazeera Arabic channel while he was a research fellow in Johannesburg in 1997, subsequently covering some of the world’s key political zones, including US-led wars on Afghanistan and Iraq. During his 8-year tenure at the helm, Al Jazeera transformed from a single channel into a global media network. This period witnessed historic transformation in the Arab World including Arab Awakening. He was ranked first in Foreign Policy magazine’s top 100 global thinkers, and was one of Fast Company’s most creative people in business in 2011

Giles Trendle – Managing Director Al Jazeera English. Tendle is the acting Managing Director of Al Jazeera English where he oversees an editorial staff of over 400 people based in its centres of Doha, London, Washington DC and Kuala Lumpur, as well as in over 70 bureaus around the world. Giles first joined Al Jazeera in 2004 to work on the Arabic channel’s flagship investigative documentary show before moving to Al Jazeera English ahead of its launch in 2006. He began his career in the mid 1980’s as a freelance print journalist based in Lebanon covering that country’s civil war. Giles resides in Qatar where the Al Jazeera Media Network is headquartered. Al Jazeera English produces 24/7 news and current affairs programming for a worldwide TV audience of over 280 million households and mobile content for global digital consumers.

David Hearst – Editor in Chief Middle East Eye. Before this, Hearst was worked at The Guardian as its chief foreign leader writer. In his time, Hearst has covered stories ranging from the miner’s strike, the breakup of former Yugoslavia, the end of the Soviet Union, Chechnya and the backlash from loyalists of the Anglo-Irish agreement.

Since Yemen’s civil war began in 2014, the country has been embroiled in fighting between forces loyal to the president, backed by a Saudi-led coalition, and Shia Houthi rebels.

Saudi Arabia remains the UK’s most important arms client, and the government has granted export licences for more than £3.3bn of aircraft, munitions and other equipment. The British government has stated the Saudis must conduct an investigation into allegations of humanitarian crimes. But many are urging that Saudi Arabia’s investigation of its own alleged humanitarian violations is not an adequate inquiry.

At the same time, the US has become more involved in the conflict, including a failed commando raid that caused the deaths of multiple civilians and a U.S. service member.

Is enough consideration of humanitarian contexts being taken in arms export licensing and counter-terrorism? With a judicial review aiming to halt UK arms sales to Saudi Arabia beginning in February, we will discuss the role of foreign powers in Yemen’s civil conflict.

Chaired by Yemeni/ British journalist and filmmaker Nawal al-Maghafi. Nawal’s work has featured on Channel 4, BBC Newsnight, BBC World and BBC Arabic, amongst others.

Speakers

David Wearing has just completed his doctoral thesis on Britain’s relationship with the Gulf Arab monarchies. He teaches international relations and Middle East politics at SOAS, and has contributed articles for The Guardian, CNN and the New Statesman. He sits on the steering committee of Campaign Against Arms Trade, and is the author of their recent report: “A Shameful Relationship: UK Complicity in Saudi State Violence”.

Iona Craig is a British-Irish independent journalist and Orwell Fellow. She was previously based in Sana’a from 2010 to 2015 as Yemen correspondent for The Times. Since Yemen’s civil war began Iona has been the only international journalist to repeatedly cross the front lines to report on both sides of the conflict, travelling over 3,000 miles across the country since March 2015 to file reports for TV, radio and print. During her time in Yemen Iona has reported for over 30 publications and broadcasters worldwide including most recently The Intercept, Harper’s, IRIN and RTÉ radio.

Rasha Mohamed is Amnesty International’s Yemen researcher. She has gone on numerous research missions to Yemen since the armed conflict erupted in March 2015. Her focus has been primarily the range of human rights violations and international humanitarian law (“laws of war”) by all sides to the conflict. For the Saudi Arabia-led coalition, this has included documenting numerous unlawful airstrikes which have killed and injured civilians, and the use of internationally banned weapons. Her research formed the basis of Amnesty International’s intervention in a current UK High Court Judicial Review of the UK government’s arms transfers to Saudi Arabia.

Perhaps a trillion dollars are stolen every year by the rulers of the world’s poorest countries. Hundreds of billions of those dollars find their way into the West, where they buy real estate, luxury goods, fine art, yachts and more. Less than a cent from every stolen dollar is ever returned to the peoples of the countries where the money was stolen.

Kleptoscope 5 looks at this under-acknowledged economic catastrophe, and asks why it is so hard to recover assets stolen by kleptocrats. And what role does London play as both a safe haven for looted money, and a laundering centre for money being invested elsewhere?

As usual, the evening is hosted by investigative journalist Oliver Bullough, who will introduce a panel of hugely experienced and knowledgeable practitioners from the three spheres of asset recovery: law enforcement, private practice and civil society.

William Bourdon is a French lawyer who specialises in corporate, media and criminal law. In 2001, he founded Sherpa to “defend the victims of crimes committed by economic operators”, and has sought to bring cases against kleptocratic rulers of countries with assets in France: including Senegal, Gabon, Equatorial Guinea and Congo-Brazzaville. He recently created PPLAAF, a platform to protect whistle blowers in Africa (https://pplaaf.org).

Daniel Hall is a director at Burford Capital, a firm that specialises in funding asset recovery cases. He has spent more than a decade investigating fraud and financial crime, with a particular emphasis on sovereign cases.

David O’Mahony is a barrister at 7BR and specialises in offshore issues. He has been instructed in cases involving money laundering and criminal fraud, civil and commercial law, arbitration, domestic and international financial regulation and international crime. He advises on public and private international law and international criminal law and has deep knowledge of the law of bribery and corruption.

The Frontline Club is pleased to welcome the 7th Laureate of the Carmignac Photojournalism Award, Mexican photographer Narciso Contreras, for a discussion on his recent work in Libya.

Contreras travelled through the complex tribal society of post-Gaddafi Libya from February to June 2016, photographing the brutal reality of human trafficking. His photographs lay bare an unfolding humanitarian crisis in which migrants, refugees and asylum seekers are at the mercy of militias who exploit them for financial gain. Held in detention centres for illegal migrants, they are subjected to inhumane conditions including overcrowding, lack of sanitation and vicious beatings.

Throughout this report, Contreras weaves a compelling narrative to show how, instead of being a place of transit for migrants on their way to Europe, Libya has actually become a trafficking market where people are bought and sold on a daily basis.

The purpose of the Carmignac Photojournalism Award supports a photojournalist in undertaking a photographic and investigative assignment exploring zones where human rights and freedom of speech are violated. Endowed with 50,000 euros, the Carmignac Award logistically supports and enables the laureate to report on a selected theme, and funds a touring exhibition of the project and the publication of a monograph.

Chair:

Emeric Glayse was appointed Director of the Carmignac Photojournalism Award in 2015. Since joining the Fondation Carmignac, he has organized the exhibitions and published the books Blank pages of an Iranian photo album by Newsha Tavakolian (2015), Colony by Christophe Gin (2015) and Libya: A human marketplace by Narciso Contreras (2016) and he curated the Photojournalism Award Retrospective at the Saatchi Gallery (2016) – the most visited photojournalism exhibition in the world in 2016. This year, Glayse and the Fondation Carmignac took a particular attention within the frame of the 7th edition in order to ensure that, in collaboration with consultants and NGOs, all necessary tools are gathered to successfully carry out the investigation.

Speakers:

Narciso Contreras is an award winning documentary photographer born in Mexico City. Narciso’s work in Syria was awarded with one of the Pulitzer Prizes in 2013, and received recognition in Pictures of the Year International. He has contributed to magazines and media outlets around the globe including TIME magazine, The Guardian, The New York Times, Paris Match, RT TV, MSNBC News, AP Associated Press, Los Angeles Times, Foreign Policy, Der Spiegel, Newsweek, Al Jazeera, The Daily Beast, National Geographic, The Sunday Times magazine, The Telegraph, The Washington Post, CNN and many more.

Sir Richard John Dalton was a senior member of the British Diplomatic Service until he retired in 2006. His assignments included British Ambassador to Libya and Iran. He was an Associate Fellow at Chatham House’s Middle East and North Africa Programme where he led from 2011 – 2014 on Libyan affairs. He is a regular commentator for UK and overseas media on Middle East issues.

For the first time, cameras go inside a police station run by and for women, revealing a unique perspective on what’s really going on in Indian society. Following the Delhi rape case in December 2012, hundreds of these police stations were set up across India. Parmila Dalal is second-in-command at the Women Police Station in Sonipat, in the northern state of Haryana.

This surprising documentary follows Parmila and her special team of scooter-mounted female officers who are focused on preventing the harassment of women. However, much of Parmila’s time is also spent mediating in family disputes, acting as a social worker. The family arguments Parmila is tasked with diffusing illuminate many of the fault lines running through Indian society.

Glimpses into Parmila’s family life capture uninhibited encounters with family members at war over such contentious matters as caste, dowry payment and relations with unpleasant in-laws. These scenes of family discord reveal how women’s lives are changing in India today, and how they often struggle to reconcile the conflicting demands made upon them.

The screening was followed by a Q&A with director Ruhi Hamid and executive producer Christopher Mitchell.

Giles Duley is a trustee of Emergency UK and an eminent war photographer who will be coming to the Frontline Club to present his most recent photographs from Iraq.

The evening will showcase Duley’s photographs from Erbil, where Emergency UK has set up a surgical centre. Giles will be joined by one of Emergency’s doctors – Dr Jasmine Armour-Marshall to discuss his photography. The main focus of the discussion will be on the medical and humanitarian impact of the fighting in Mosul and the effect this will have on the people there for years to come.

Speakers

Chair: Iain Overton is an investigative journalist, author and the Executive Director of Action on Armed Violence. AOAV is a charity that investigates the impact of explosive weapons and small arms on civilians around the world. Overton has reported on Iraq, Ukraine, Syria, Jordan, Mexico, Columbia to name just a few. His human rights reporting has earned him a Peabody Award and two Amnesty Awards.

Giles Duley works tirelessly to highlight the otherwise untold stories in the most dire environments today. His eminent work has earned him a nomination for the Amnesty International Media Award in 2010 and he was the winner of the Prix de Paris, 2010 and 2012. His work has also come at a huge personal cost when in 2011 while on patrol with the 75th Cavalry Regiment, United States Army in Afghanistan, Duley stepped on an IED. He was severely injured losing both legs and an arm.

Dr Armour-Marshall is a paediatrician, humanitarian and child at heart; Jasmine has recently returned from the Kurdistan region of northern Iraq where EMERGENCY provide primary healthcare for refugees and internally displaced people. She cared for children and families and gave support and training to local healthcare professionals.

Emergency provides free, high-quality healthcare to victims of war, poverty and landmines, alongside building hospitals and training local medical staff. Founded in 1994 Emergency has treated 8 million people in 17 different countries and currently operates in Afghanistan, Iraq, Sierra Leone, Central African Republic, Sudan and Italy.

Watch Duley’s TED talk on the Legacy of War and Syria here:

http://legacyofwar.com/power-story-tedx/

See some of Duley’s work and interviews for the Guardian:

https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/2017/jun/03/giles-duley-photographs-of-refugees-journeys-in-pictures

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jun/03/giles-duley-photographs-syrian-refugees-lesbos