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

We will be streaming this event live on our Facebook page at 7pm.

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.

Dr Marc Jones – Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies Exeter University.  His work focuses on political repression in Bahrain, and he is currently working to identify Twitter bots in the Gulf region. He has previously taught Middle East Politics at Tuebingen University, Newcastle and Durham University, and has published widely on new media in the Gulf.

Cuba was the first communist state to be created in the western hemisphere – it’s also the last one standing. But the United States’ economic embargo against Cuba, coupled with the break up of the Soviet Union, has left this island nation struggling to provide for its citizens’ most basic needs.

In 2011, President Raul Castro introduced a series of dramatic reforms designed to stimulate growth. For the first time in decades, Cuban citizens were allowed to sell their homes and open businesses. Foreign companies are now permitted to invest in Cuba too.

The President insists that these measures are designed to preserve, rather than dismantle, Cuban socialism. But can he successfully open up the economy without betraying the promise of a classless society upon which the Cuban state was built? Juliana Ruhfus and Seamus Mirodan investigate.

People and Power is Al Jazeera’s weekly investigative documentary programme that looks at the use and abuse of power. People and Power: Cuba for Sale will be broadcast on Al Jazeera English on 24 February.

Reporters: Juliana Ruhfus and Seamus Mirodan
Runtime: 25′

The panel:

Richard Gott (moderator) is a British journalist and historian with forty years experience of Latin America. He was for many years on the staff of The Guardian newspaper in London. He is currently an honorary research fellow at the Institute for the Study of the Americas at the University of London. He is author of Cuba: A New History (Yale University Press), and Hugo Chávez and the Bolivarian Revolution (Verso).

Stephen Wilkinson first visited Cuba in 1986 and has been travelling to and writing about the island ever since. Now assistant director at the International Institute for the Study of Cuba, Stephen has a PhD on the subject of Cuban literature. He has written numerous articles on such questions as the history of US-Cuba relations, Cuban attitudes and policy towards homosexuals and the nature of the Cuban state. Stephen’s book: Detective Fiction in Cuban Society and Culture was published in 2006 by Peter Lang. He frequently comments on Cuba issues on The Guardian newspaper’s Comment is Free website.

Juliana Ruhfus is the senior reporter for Al Jazeera’s ‘People & Power’ investigative and current affairs strand where she has worked since 2006, when her film on Liberian ex-combatants launched the channel’s programming content. Nearly 30 films later she has gone undercover in Turkmenistan and in Cambodian orphanages, produced the five part ‘Corporations on Trial’ series, and her two-part investigation into the trafficking of Nigerian women into the Italian sex-trade is one of the most-watched People & Power shows in its history. In 2010, she was awarded the Ochberg Fellowship, and in 2011 she received a scholarship for Harvard’s Global Trauma Program. She is currently on the European board of directors for the Dart Centre for Journalism and Trauma.

Since 1995, Helen Yaffe has spent time living and researching in Cuba. Her PhD thesis, undertaken at the London School of Economics, was published as Che Guevara: The Economics of Revolution by Palgrave Macmillan in 2009, and subsequently in four other language editions. Her research and publications have continued to focus on Cuban political economy, as well as the political economy of Latin American regional economic integration. Helen has taught Cuban and Latin American (economic) history at UCL, LSE and Birkbeck. She is currently a Fellow in the Economic History department at the London School of Economics (LSE) where she lectures and teaches on the history of economics.

Bernard Regan, Cuba Solidarity Campaign National Secretary. CSC campaigns against the illegal 50 year old blockade of Cuba, for an end to the US occupation of Cuban land at Guantanamo Bay, and to defend the Cuban people’s right to be free from foreign intervention. The Cuba Solidarity Campaign is broad based and has more than 5,000 members, affiliated organisations and local groups. Together we lobby MPs and government, organise solidarity brigades specialist tours and exchanges, and work to build links and better understanding between Britain and Cuba.

Meet Kisilu Musya, a Kenyan farmer and father of eight children, living at the front line of our changing climate. Through Kisilu’s poignant video diary and director Julia Dahr’s observational footage, we follow Kisilu and the Musya family through their day-to-day life over three years. We experience their struggle against the extreme storms and increasing droughts that threaten to destroy their home and ruin the crops that provide their food.

This personalised narrative documents a grassroots environmental awareness movement, as Kisilu determines to inform his community of tactics to help prepare their homes and crops for extreme weather.

Kisilu is an intimate portrait of a tightly knit family and one innovative and impassioned man battling the impacts of climate change to create a better future for his local community.

Kisilu: The Climate Diaries was awarded the Student Award at the 2015 One World Media Awards and will be broadcast on Al Jazeera Witness on 2 December 2015.

Director: Julia Dahr
Production Company: Banyak Films
Producer: Hugh Hartford
Runtime: 60′
Year: 2015
Country: Norway

On Wednesday 7 October, former Al Jazeera English bureau chief Mohamed Fahmy joined a packed audience at the Frontline Club in his first public appearance since his release from a Cairo prison on 23 September. Fahmy was joined in conversation by his lawyer Amal Clooney and BBC chief international correspondent Lyse Doucet.

Fahmy, an Egyptian-Canadian dual citizen, was arrested in December 2013 along with colleagues Peter Greste and Baher Mohamed, and sentenced to seven years in a maximum security prison on terrorism-related charges. He was finally pardoned by Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi on 23 September.

“I am a changed man and I am inspired by what’s happened to me – that’s why I’m fighting for other journalists,” Fahmy said of his newly-established Fahmy Foundation, which will support journalists across the world who have been unjustly imprisoned.

Critical in the past of the Canadian government’s failure to intervene strongly enough on his behalf, Fahmy repeated: “I do believe the Canadian government could have done more.”

He went on to emphasise that “governments should be much faster in intervening” when their citizens are held abroad. “Intervention needs to come immediately, from the highest levels of government.” Fahmy expressed his concern that this had not yet happened in the case of Iraqi VICE News journalist Mohamed Rasool, currently detained in Turkey on charges related to terrorism.

Denouncing Canada’s new Bill C-24, which allows the government to revoke a dual national’s Canadian citizenship if the citizen is convicted of terrorism, Fahmy said, “it’s a very dangerous law. It overrides the judiciary… it should be revisited.”

The discussion then moved onto the role of Al Jazeera, with reports of Fahmy suing his former employer for $100m on the basis of negligence in May 2015. “Al-Jazeera’s shortcomings and mistakes contributed to our situation,” he said. “I had specifically asked many times, are we legal in the Marriott [the Cairo hotel where Fahmy’s broadcast team was based]? They said, ‘Yes, stick to the editorial side, don’t worry about it’… but the answer – I found out in court.”

Fahmy continued, “I asked Al-Jazeera to take responsibility, to present a letter to the judge saying ‘[Greste, Fahmy and Mohamed] have nothing to do with this, this is our fault’, but they did not… it really angered me.”

“It was important to make it clear that there is a distinction between the network and the journalists who work in the network,” said Fahmy, describing the re-trial defence strategy.

Clooney took on Fahmy’s case, she said, when she “realised what was at stake, because Egypt is a leader in the region… It sets a precedent.”

Doucet praised her dedication to the cause: “We want to recognise all lawyers who fight for journalists, and we need more.”

Clooney continued: “Elements of the [Egyptian] government… sought to bring about justice. Belatedly, but they finally did do. The work that lawyers and journalists and human rights activists have to do is to make sure they’re pushing those elements of the government that are a force for good.”

Both Fahmy and Clooney praised the media’s essential role in the campaign for his freedom. “Social media was so important in this case,” Fahmy said, mentioning the #FreeAJStaff Twitter hashtag. “It does make a huge difference… This collective effort is why I’m here today.”

Optimism remains key to both Fahmy and his lawyer’s ongoing fight for press freedom. “There are signs of positive development in Egypt… but there’s a long way to go,” Fahmy said.

A new press charter to which he contributed will shortly be presented to President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, in the hope that journalists will consequently be able to work more freely in Egypt.

Clooney echoed this positive sentiment: “Hopefully this pardon means at the highest level there may be some change in approach.”

Clooney concluded the discussion with a few words on Fahmy‘s long-awaited freedom: “Today, we can take a moment to celebrate what’s happened to this journalist.”

“I’m here,” Fahmy replied, “because I have two very powerful women who are behind me,” thanking Clooney and his wife Marwa Omara.

Fahmy and his wife will shortly return to Canada, where he will take up a visiting post at the University of British Columbia and “continue to fight and use the spotlight” on behalf of the “many more behind bars” across the globe.

More information on the Fahmy Foundation – and their work in campaigning for the release of unlawfully imprisoned journalists, including Egyptian photojournalist Shawkan and Saudi blogger Raif Badawi – can be found here.

Heading to Sheffield Doc/Fest this year? Not only does the programme contain a fantastic selection of documentaries, but everyone with a full festival pass also has access to the diverse and inspiring conference programme. We have produced a conference session, Dangerous Storytelling: Documentary Filmmaking and the Safety of Subjects, which will place at the ITV Town Hall Council Chamber at 10:15 AM on Tuesday 9 June.

The relationship between filmmaker and subject is a topic hotly debated by film directors, academics, and journalists. Methods such as undercover filming, encrypted communication and Skype allow filmmakers to reach individuals who may otherwise be reluctant to speak or difficult to meet in person. However, unprecedented access to a compelling story can come with a risk to the individuals at the centre of the film. How can documentary makers without a journalism background practice safe investigative work? When the telling of a story has potential consequences, how can a filmmaker ensure the protection of their subjects? We will be joined by Orlando von Einsiedel, Kim Longinotto, Julianna Ruhfus, and Beadie Finzi to discuss circumstances in which the presence of a camera is risky business.

The panelists:

Beadie Finzi (Chair)
Beadie Finzi is one of the founding directors of BRITDOC, a non profit film foundation supported by Channel 4 Television, Ford Foundation and Bertha Foundation as well as a number of US and European foundations. Having worked in documentary for the past 20 years, Beadie is in heaven in her role at BRITDOC – whose mission is to befriend independent filmmakers, fund great films (120 to date), broker new partnerships, build new business models, share knowledge and develop audiences globally.

Kim Longinotto
Kim Longinotto is an award-winning and critically acclaimed documentary filmmaker. Best known for her unobtrusive observational style and focus on female subjects crossing a multitude of international boundaries, Kim was the subject of a two-week career retrospective at New York’s Museum of Modern Art in 2009 and was awarded the Inspiration Award by Sheffield Doc/Fest in 2010. She has directed 20 documentaries, a selection of which include Eat the Kimono (1989), Rock Wives (1996) Divorce Iranian Style (1998) and Hold Me Tight, Let Me Go (2007). Rough Aunties (2008) won the World Cinema Documentary Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival in 2009. Her most recent films Pink Saris (2010) and Salma (2013) are set in India.

Orlando Von Einsiedel
2014 saw the completion of Orlando von Einsiedel’s debut feature length documentary, VIRUNGA, focusing on the conservation work of rangers within Virunga National Park in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Winning 40 international awards, it showcases Orlando’s ability for drawing out intimate and personal stories in challenging locations. Orlando previously directed award-winning films spanning Africa, Asia, the Americas, and the Arctic, covering a diverse range of stories. He has been nominated for an Academy Award, a BAFTA, a Directors’ Guild of America Award, and an Independent Film Spirit Award.

Juliana Ruhfus
Juliana Ruhfus is the senior reporter for Al Jazeera’s ‘People & Power’ investigative and current affairs strand where she has worked since 2006, when her film on Liberian ex-combatants launched the channel’s programming content. Nearly 30 films later she has gone undercover in Turkmenistan and in Cambodian orphanages, produced the five part ‘Corporations on Trial’ series, and her two-part investigation into the trafficking of Nigerian women into the Italian sex-trade is one of the most-watched People & Power shows in its history. In 2010, she was awarded the Ochberg Fellowship, and in 2011 she received a scholarship for Harvard’s Global Trauma Program. She is currently on the European board of directors for the Dart Centre for Journalism and Trauma. In 2003, and again in 2007/08, Juliana has also worked as an expert consultant for the UN Security Council Sanctions Committee monitoring violations of the arms embargo on Somalia.

In an emotional and inspiring interview at the Frontline Club on 19 February, little more than two weeks after his release from an Egyptian prison, Australian journalist Peter Greste spoke of his experience of being incarcerated for more than 400 days for nothing more than doing his job as a journalist.

Greeted by a standing ovation, Greste took to the stage, beaming to the crowded room and waving to friends and colleagues. It was Greste’s first visit to London since he was released on 2 February under a presidential decree that allowed for the deportation of foreigners accused of crimes on Egyptian soil.

Facing up to what was originally a seven-year sentence had changed him as a person, said Greste, but he felt empowered to have discovered that the limits to what he could endure were beyond what he had ever expected.

Out of the blue

Speaking to journalist Sue Turton, Greste recalled the otherwise ordinary evening in December 2013 when in the midst of his preparations to go out for dinner “about eight guys” burst into his room. They put him in handcuffs and took him to a police cell. He would not be free again for almost 14 months.

Greste, who was working for Al Jazeera English at the time, had experienced brushes with the authorities when working on controversial stories at other points in his career. But this time his arrest came completely out of the blue.

“We knew that we hadn’t done anything wrong; we hadn’t pushed any boundaries,” he said. “We’d always felt when we were working that as long as you play with a straight bat you’ll be relatively safe.”

Although Greste and his two Al Jazeera colleagues, Mohamed Fahmy and Baher Mohamed, forced themselves to consider the possibility that they would be convicted, they “never really believed it,” he said.

But on 23 June 2014, Greste was sentenced to a seven-year term on accusations of terrorism and inventing the news, based on courtroom evidence that included footage of a family holiday and stories wholly unrelated to Egypt. Fahmy was also given a seven-year sentence; Mohamed was given ten years.

Creating structure

Conditions in the Tora Mazraa prison on the outskirts of Cairo, where Greste and his fellow inmates were confined to cramped cells for 23 hours a day, were humane but basic.

In order to cope, Greste developed a daily regime that included meditation, exercise and rigid study.

“I had to make a conscious decision to stay fit: physically fit, psychologically fit, and spiritually fit,” he said.
Each day, Greste spent an hour running up and down the 30 metre corridor outside his cell, covering distances of up to 12 kilometres a day.

He began studying for a master’s degree in international relations, courtesy of Griffith University in Australia. The university delivered 13 kilograms of academic papers to the prison, where Greste studied in his cell with pencil and paper.

“I figured there was no way I’d be able to get through this without doing something with my mind,” he said. “Even when your physical integrity is at risk, what really matters is your own mind and how you cope with it.”

Setting a horizon

Even with these distractions, the mental side was the greatest challenge, said Greste.

“The biggest danger is that your own mind can run away and play all sorts of tricks on you,” he said. “There were some really black days when you sink into despair, but you have to ride it out. If you carry a grudge with you it’s only going to turn in on yourself.”

The challenge was made all the more great by the uncertainty of the situation.

“The hardest part…was the open-ended nature of it,” said Greste. “Towards the end we knew we would probably have to mentally prepare for six more years.

“The only way through is to set your horizon to something you think you can cope with. Sometimes to the end of the week, or the next visit. Sometimes to the end of the day. Sometimes I’d say I’ll get through one more hour and I’ll think about the next hour after that then. It’s not easy, but it’s a matter of biting off the amount that you think you can chew.”

Emotional release

When Greste’s release came, it was sudden. “The embassy’s coming for you in an hour,” he was told. “Get your stuff you’re going home.”

At the time Fahmy was in hospital receiving treatment for an injured shoulder and Hepatitis C, but leaving behind Mohamed was an emotional moment for Greste.

“When you spend 400 days in a box with someone you get to know each other pretty well,” he said. “It’s as close as you can come to having a brother. Walking away and leaving them behind is not easy, and I still feel anguished about it.”

Greste attributed his release to the international pressure that was brought to bear on his behalf, both in the diplomatic community and in the media.

“I was rather spoiled,” he joked. “I had two governments on my case – Australia and Latvia. And I didn’t even know that I was Latvian!”

Ongoing campaign

Not everyone was so lucky. Many are still facing charges, said Greste, including a Dutch journalist and three young students who were attached to his case. Six Al Jazeera journalists, including Turton, were convicted in absentia.

Fahmy and Mohamed were released on bail on 13 February, after spending 411 days in prison, when an Egyptian court overturned an earlier verdict that had found them guilty of supporting the Muslim Brotherhood.

A retrial was scheduled for 23 February 2015, but has now been adjourned until 8 March.

The campaign to free Fahmy, Mohamed and the numerous other journalists who have been unjustly detained in Egypt and elsewhere, is ongoing.

Last year, 120 journalists were victims of targeted killings worldwide, the most dangerous countries including Pakistan, Syria, Ukraine, Honduras and Mexico, said Andy Smith, joint president of the UK’s National Union of Journalists, who joined the Frontline Club discussion for the latter stages.

The number of journalists imprisoned worldwide for doing their job has increased from roughly 100 at the turn of the century to about 200 today, said Smith.

Greste underlined the importance of not letting the pressure for media freedom ease up following his release.

“The [journalism] community across the globe pulled together in a way that was absolutely unprecedented,” he said.” “If we lose this unity of purpose we lose something of enormous value. It is incumbent on everyone to use this not just in our case but in the case of every journalist.”

There is a natural reticence among the journalism community to write about other journalists, said Greste, but this is something that must be overcome.

“Journalists covering journalists gets us in some sort of existential angst, but we need to recognise that it’s an essential part of society, we are the fourth estate. We’ve got to appreciate that an attack on journalism, on the freedom of speech, is an attack on wider society. We need to learn to be a little less self-conscious about covering the plight of journalists…because it tends to be a symptom of much deeper problems.”

Empowering

The other significant legacy of Greste’s ordeal was the discovery that his limits went far beyond his imagination.

“It has changed me as a person,” he said. “I’ve been tested and I’ve discovered that my limits are a lot further than I thought they were, and it’s a very empowering thing.

“I think most people are vastly more capable of dealing with difficult situations than you imagine.”

Watch and listen back below:

On Monday 10 November, the Frontline Club hosted a preview screening of Liberia – Living With Ebola, the first episode in Al Jazeera’s latest series of Africa Investigates. The film documented the impact of Ebola on those at the front line of the disease in Liberia, focusing on the communities worst hit and the healthcare workers who run the Ebola Treatment Units (ETUs) and take away the highly infectious bodies of the dead.

The film was presented by Sierra Leonean reporter Sorious Samura, whose intimate understanding of the culture and people provided a glimpse into the fight against Ebola not explored by Western journalists.

The screening was followed by a Q&A with Samura, the film’s director Clive Patterson and the evening’s host, Channel 4’s Tom Clarke, who had himself recently returned from covering the Ebola story in Sierra Leone.

“The strength of [the film], is it’s about Liberia living with Ebola. . . . The thing we forget is that the solution to it is how countries are living with it, managing it,” said Clarke in his opening statement.

One of the main issues that the film tackled was how the combination of corruption and government mistrust helped to fuel the outbreak.

“Millions of pounds have poured into that country to help build the health structure, the schools. Where has that money gone?” Samura asked. There were some tough questions about who was to blame for the aid black whole that left Liberia and Sierra Leone so unprepared for the outbreak.

“There is a level of negligence there on the part of Western donors who basically allowed Liberia to get away with the requirements when it came to healthcare,” said Patterson.

Naturally this raised questions about the postcolonial relationship between Africa and the West. What is the best way to tackle Ebola without falling into the discourses of old?

Ultimately the responsibility to tackle corruption lies with the people of Liberia and Sierra Leone, Samura told the audience. And he has started to see that change in how the people of Liberia have begun to ask questions in a way they never would have before.

“I grow up in Sierra Leone and we don’t look at people in their eyes when they talk. People of authority, we don’t ask questions. But now we have like emails from Sierra Leoneans asking questions,” Samura said.

But have we not learned anything from any of the other diseases that have afflicted Africa, an audience member asked?

“These governments that we have in place, first of all they were never prepared, they don’t know what to do when it came and they, perhaps, will not even know what to do when the NGOs have packed and left,” said Samura.

It is clear that controlling the spread of Ebola in Liberia and Sierra Leone is only the first part of the story, and once the initial crisis has passed there are a lot of questions that will need to be answered about why people still don’t trust their government, and why aid money still doesn’t make it to the ground.

Emmy- and BAFTA-winning reporter from Sierra Leone, Sorious Samura joins Liberian investigative reporter, Mae Azango, to reveal the inside story of the Ebola outbreak from the worst hit country – Liberia. Bringing an African perspective to the devastating spread of the virus, they reveal not only the heroic efforts being made by teams on the front line, but also the deep anger and mistrust held by Liberians towards their government in this time of crisis.

Furious health workers rage against the authorities for cuts in their pay, while their colleagues continue to die at an alarming rate. As belated international support finally pours in, Samura discovers the hidden impact of the outbreak. This timely and challenging film offers an inside view of a country living with Ebola.

Directed by Clive Patterson
Duration: 24
Year: 2014

As part of this year’s Summer Season exploring walls, barriers and borders today, the Frontline Club hosted a preview screening of The Architecture of Violence on Wednesday 13 August. It was followed by a Q&A with director Ana Naomi de Sousa and protagonist, architect and activist Eyal Weizman, moderated by filmmaker Olly Lambert. The film is part of Rebel Architecture, a six-part Al Jazeera English documentary series profiling architects who are using design as a form of activism and resistance to tackle the world’s urban, environmental and social crises.

The film focusses on the architectural infrastructure of the West Bank, and the idea that architecture can be used as a form of violence, which at first, may not be obvious, as Weizman said:

“If you think about human rights violations, you think about soldiers, you think about politicians. You don’t really think about architects. If you want to make architects liable to violations of interntional law, the proof is in the drawing. . . . You see a settlements like Ariel . . . and you see it built as a wedge and you start understanding that the way it was designed was to cut a whole kind of north–south axis along the West Bank. The design, [the] line that was drawn on the plan of the architect, is where the crime is . . . because there is a conscious attempt or intent to produce material damage through architectural form.”

The film also explores Weizman‘s latest project, Forensic Architecture, which aims to use architectural knowledge as evidence in the investigation of war crimes and human rights violations.

“It is essential now to use architecture as a form of evidence [in court], at a time when most wars are happening in cities, where in fact not only most wars are happening in cities, [but] most people that die are dying inside buildings.”

Responding to a question about whether there are Palestinian attempts to counter the invasive effects of settlements, de Sousa replied:

“There are interesting stories and very interesting Palestinian architects like Naseer Arafat [featured in the film]. . . . Sandy Halal . . . also has [done] some very interesting work in the refugee camps all across the West Bank, which is about involving people who live in the camps in thinking about and imagining and acting out urbanisation of the camps, which is very interesting because the refugee camps are perceived to be temporary spaces and that temporariness is linked to the claim to the right to return. And so there is a sort of cultural resistance to the urbanisation of camps.”

However, as Weizman explains in the film, the undercurrent of architectural violence has often gone unnoticed:

“When you are travelling through the West Bank everything looks very banal and mundane and that’s its power. . . . [The wall] draws like a moth towards a flame all the photographers to work with that because it’s so visually obvious. But when you see a settlement, it looks like a suburb; the road, it looks like any road. When you see infrastructure systems – the same. This is where decoding is important, this is where you have to denaturalise processes that seem very natural.”

Talking about the wider implications of these ideas, de Sousa added:

“This idea that the built environment is a slow kind of violence, I think, is something that you see everywhere.”

Premiering on Monday 18 August 2014, Rebel Architecture features inspiring architects that are using design to tackle the world’s urban, environmental and social crises.

For further reading on the subject, see:

Carranza, L E. 2010. Architecture as Revolution: Episodes in the History of Modern Mexico.

Forensic Architecture, ed. 2014. Forensis: The Architecture of Public Truth.

Segal R, Tartakover D and Weizman, E, eds. 2003. A Civilian Occupation: The Politics of Israeli Architecture.

Weizman, E. 2007. Hollow Land: Israel’s Architecture of Occupation.

Weizman, E. 2011. The Least of All Possible Evils: Humanitarian Violence from Arendt to Gaza.

Weizman, E. 2012. Forensic Architecture: Notes from Fields and Forums.

In 2010 U.S. Army Private Bradley Manning committed the largest security breach in US history, handing the classified Afghan War Diary, Iraq War Logs, and 250,000 State Department cables to Wikileaks. Imagery like that of an American helicopter team gunning down citizens and journalists on a Baghdad street in 2007 has been lodged in the global consciousness.

With Manning standing trial before a military court in June, the Frontline Club engaged an expert panel on Monday 15 May to ask what lies ahead for the whistleblower, along with what his experience might mean to governments and the media.

(L-R): Naomi Colvin, Chase Madar, Richard Gizbert and David Leigh. Photo credit: Jim Treadway

Naomi Colvin, a writer, activist and founder of UK Friends of Bradley Manning, declared him a “touchstone for people involved in social justice movements.”

“2011 is one of those years that will go down in history, like 1989, or 1968, or 1848,” she said.  “Political action was on a worldwide scale. . . . That spark of enthusiasm started in the Middle East, and the [documents that Manning released] are at least a contributing factor to that.”

Chase Madar, a New York attorney who has written a book detailing Manning’s experience, agreed:

“The State Department cables [were] just a very brutal and candid assessment of corruption in the Ben Ali government . . . Tunisian intellectuals I’ve spoken with have said you really can’t tell the story of the uprising there without at least mentioning Bradley Manning and his leaks.”

The panel rang of frustration with the American media’s failure to cover the Manning story in fairness or depth. Americans “know very little” about his case, Madar observed.

“The New York Times fails to send a journalist to cover the first public hearing with Manning,” lamented Richard Gizbert, Presenter for al Jazeera’s Listening Post, “which even the Times’ own ombudsman said was ridiculous.”

“I got adopted by the staff of a fish restaurant in Glasgow [recently],” Madar recounted. “The bartender and the waiter knew all about [Manning’s case], and it’s because The Guardian’s coverage [has been] much better than anything in the United States.”

David Leigh, the Guardian‘s investigations editor until 2013 and co-author of a book on Julian Assange and Wikileaks, reduced Manning’s trial to “a piece of theatre by the American military to expose, dramatise, penalise and terrorise whistleblowers.”

Even still, Madar harbored optimism for what Manning will ultimately represent:

“He delivered a 35-page statement of intent in court a couple of months ago…  it was very impressive… poised, very self-possessed, very thoughtful and reflective, as opposed to the way he’d been demonised as some naricissistic little punk… The more people hear from Bradley Manning in his own words and in his own voice – because someone smuggled a recorder into the courtroom, you can hear him with his own voice – the more they’re going to realise that Bradley Manning is the responsible, ethical citizen; that it’s his detractors in government and the media who are the narcissistic, little, punks.”

You can watch a recording of the event or listen to the audio podcast below:

https://soundcloud.com/frontlineclub/the-case-of-the-us-vs-bradley