Omar Khadr, a Canadian citizen who was captured by American forces in Afghanistan in 2002 and spent a decade imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay, tells his own story in this documentary portrait from directors Patrick Reed and Michelle Shephard.

In prison Khadr struggled to endure the inhumane conditions and the demoralising improbability of release. In the outside world, public outcry mounted as the US and Canadian governments refused to take action. It took the relentless work of Dennis Edney, Khadr’s lawyer of over a decade, to advance the case. Finally repatriated to Canada in 2012, and released in May of this year, Khadr then faces the Harper government’s attempt to overturn his bail.

Featuring unprecedented access to former fellow inmates, family members, and government officials, Guantanamo’s Child acquaints us with an incredibly resilient young person who grew up in a tragic setting and analyses the political implications of his case.

Investigating a life that has sparked some of the most heated political debates in recent history, filmmakers Patrick Reed and Michelle Shephard reveal a young man who is cautiously ready for another chapter of his life. And for the first time, Omar Khadr himself tells us his side of the story.

Directed by: Michelle Shephard and Patrick Reed
Produced by: Peter Raymont, Michelle Shephard, Patrick Reed
Runtime: 80′
Country: Canada
White Pine Pictures

Discussion to be moderated by Richard Gizbert, presenter of Al Jazeera English’s The Listening Post, a weekly show that looks at news coverage by the world’s media. Gizbert has also spent 25 years working in the media world as a foreign correspondent, covering stories around the world.

Panelists:

Moazzam Begg is one of nine British citizens who were held at Camp X-Ray, Guantánamo Bay by the US government. He was released on January 25 2005 without charge. He is the director of outreach for advocacy group CAGE and author of Enemy Combatant. This year he was imprisoned by the British government on charges relating to Syria, his case was later dropped.

Michelle Shephard is an investigative reporter with the Toronto Star, author and filmmaker. With patrick Reed she co-directed Guantanamo’s Child, which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in September 2015.  Shephard has been awarded the Michener Award for public service journalism and won Canada’s top newspaper prize, the National Newspaper Award, three times.  In 2011, she was an associate producer on the Oscar-nominated documentary Under Fire: Journalists in Combat.  She produced the National Film Board documentary, “Prisoners of the Absurd,” which premiered at Amsterdam’s film festival in 2014.  

Cori Crider heads the Abuses in Counter-Terrorism team at international NGO Reprieve. A U.S. lawyer, Cori has spent a decade investigating and litigating the most serious violations of the ‘war on terror’: Guantánamo, CIA rendition and torture, and civilian deaths from drone attacks in undeclared war zones.
She devised Reprieve’s challenge to abusive force-feeding at Guantánamo, which resulted in the first disclosure of videotapes of the process. She also developed Reprieve’s project investigating the drone war in Yemen: her team exposed key details of a drone strike on a wedding convoy, and brought a Yemeni man whose innocent relatives died in an attack to Washington, D.C. She represents two Libyan families whom U.S. and British intelligence ‘rendered’ to the dungeons of dictator Muammar Gaddafi.
Cori regularly gives print and broadcast interviews on counter-terror abuses and has written for the Guardian, CNN, al Jazeera, and the Huffington Post.

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.

From 29-31 October, the Frontline Club is hosting screenings as part of the Green Caravan Film Festival, a travelling festival of environmental and socially-conscious films. The full lineup can be found here.

The Wanted 18 recreates an astonishing true story: the Israeli army’s pursuit of 18 cows, whose independent milk production on a Palestinian collective farm was declared “a threat to the national security of the state of Israel.”

In response to the Israeli occupation of the West Bank, a group of people from the town of Beit Sahour decide to buy 18 cows and produce their own milk as a co-operative. Their venture is so successful that the collective farm becomes a landmark, and the cows local celebrities – until the Israeli army takes note and declares that the farm is an illegal security threat. Consequently, the dairy is forced to go underground, and the cows continue to produce their “Intifada milk” with the Israeli army in relentless pursuit.

Directed by: Amer Shomali and Paul Cowan
Runtime: 75′
Country: Canada
Year: 2014

How to Change the World chronicles the adventures of an eclectic group of young pioneers – Canadian hippie journalists, photographers, musicians, scientists, and American draft dodgers – who set out to stop Richard Nixon’s atomic bomb tests in Amchitka, Alaska, and end up creating the worldwide green movement.

Greenpeace was founded on tight knit, passionate friendships forged in Vancouver in the early 1970s. Together they pioneered a template for environmental activism which mixed daring iconic feats and engagement with worldwide media: placing small rubber inflatables between harpooners and whales; blocking ice-breaking sealing ships with their bodies; spraying the pelts of baby seals with dye to make them valueless in the fur market.

The group had a prescient understanding of the power of media, knowing that the advent of global mass communications meant that the image had become a more effective tool for change than the strike or the demonstration. But by the summer of 1977, Greenpeace Vancouver was suing Greenpeace San Francisco and the organisation had become a victim of its own anarchic roots, saddled with large debts and frequent in-fighting.

How To Change The World draws on interviews with the key players and hitherto unseen archive footage, which brings these extraordinary characters and their intense, sometimes eccentric and often dangerous world alive.

Directed by: Jerry Rothwell
Produced by: Al Morrow & Bous de Jong
Year: 2015
Running time: 110′

On Monday 31 March, the Frontline Club hosted a screening of First to Fall, followed by a Q&A with the director of the film, Rachel Beth Anderson, and its co-director, Tim Grucza.

First to Fall follows two Libyan young men, Hamid and Tarek, who return to Libya from Canada during the conflict in 2011. The two friends, both in their twenties, are troubled by the events in their home country, and feel that they must join the fight against Gaddafi. They soon find themselves in the middle of the fighting, despite their lack of military training. The film places the journeys of Tarek and Hamid at the centre of the larger context of the conflict, documenting their different experiences of the war.

Anderson spoke about how she met Tarek and Hamid very soon after they had arrived in Libya and was therefore able to document their experiences of joining a war and present their whole journey. Initially assigned to work in Libya for a week, she realised she wanted to stay to be able to tell the story of the rebels and their experiences of the Arab Spring, which was so different from previous conflicts in Tunisia and Egypt:

“I had finished covering the Egyptian Revolution and had a week long assignment to go to Libya, and after finishing that assignment I couldn’t leave because I saw what was happening in Libya and saw the purpose and the need to have journalists there to get the story out.”

Much of the footage of the front line was filmed by Tarek and Hamid and their friends; they filmed 100 hours of footage. Both Anderson and Grucza discussed how important it was to be able to show the film from the rebels’ perspective – to be able to witness the events as they saw them. However, as Grucza said, the scenes which Anderson filmed of the rebels while they were not on the battlefield were crucial to presenting the story:

“‘Bang bang’ footage is one thing, but you can’t make a film from it, it doesn’t make sense; in the chaos of war, even when you’re in the midst of the fight, nothing really makes sense; it’s a survival thing.”

Anderson added:

“I care so much about what happens away from the battlefield, when they turn off their cameras. So it was really amazing for the film to be able to include what they thought was important and the moments I thought were important so that you can really get a full idea of the journey these guys went on.”

One audience member pointed out the noticeable lack of women in the fighting and movement for freedom.  Anderson was asked whether she felt that her being so close to the fighters was a problem.  She explained that everyone fighting recognised the need for Western journalists, for people to document and broadcast the events. As she met both Tarek and Hamid so soon after they had arrived in Libya, she was able to build a relationship with them and gain their trust. She described how important it was to be introduced by someone trustworthy.

Many of the questions asked by the audience focused on the lives of Tarek and Hamid, particularly what happened to them after the film ended and where they were now. Anderson and Grucza told the audience that they were still in touch with both men, but, sadly, they are no longer in contact with each other.

Hamid is still living in Libya, working for the government, but unhappy and disillusioned with the new Libya. While the rebels were celebrated and admired during the conflict, he describes how many are now treated poorly and labelled as ‘gangsters’. There were many regional tensions between rebel groups in the aftermath of the conflict; the groups were all united by their hatred of Gaddafi, which ended once he had been killed. 

Grucza said that he believed the journey of these two friends was symbolic of the Arab Spring in general:

“The initial euphoria, . . . without contemplating what the future might hold, and that their disintegrating personal lives were symbolic of the region.”

However, he disagreed with an audience member who suggested that the end of the film would lead to the conclusion that the conflict was ‘futile’; despite the fact that Gaddafi was gone, the two central characters of the film did not have happy endings. He said that the film’s end was not the end in reality; Tarek and Hamid are small ‘pawns’ – their story is one very small piece of a much larger picture.

The film had its world premiere at IDFA in November, and was part of this year’s Human Rights Watch Film Festival in London. The screening at the Frontline Club marked the end of a week of UK screenings, but more are planned for the future. Hopefully Hamid will be able to attend a screening that is being planned in Canada so he can see the film. More information about the film and dates of any future screenings can be found on the film’s website, Facebook or Twitter.

By Nicole Hunt

Anders Behring Breivik, the man who admitted to setting off the 22 July bomb in Oslo, killing eight people, before killing 69 people on the island of Utoya, makes his first public appearance at Oslo City Court on Monday. On 12 September, the court rejected a police request for another closed door hearing, meaning media and victims’ families will be able to attend.

In Geneva, the UN Global Fund releases the findings of a four-month independent review into its financial safeguards, following accusations of mismanagement of funds in recipient countries.

Monday is also the six month anniversary of the beginning of military action in Libya. Forces from the US, the UK, France, Canada, UAE and Qatar began enforcing the no-fly zone authorised by UN Security Council Resolutions 1970 and 1973 on 19 March.

The trial of seven Italian scientists charged with manslaughter for failing to predict the April 2009 earthquake that killed over 300 people kicks off in L’Aquila on Tuesday. The scientists, who made up the city’s Great Risks Commission, are accused of failing to warn people of the potential risk of an earthquake and convincing people not to leave town a week before the earthquake struck.

In a Paris court, former News of the World chief reporter Neville Thurlbeck and representatives for News Group Newspapers appear charged with breaching France’s privacy and defamation laws in relation to a 2008 story about former FIA president Max Mosley. Mosley was awarded £60,000 in damages by the UK High Court in 2008, but the European Court of Human Rights rejected an application by Mosley in May that would have required media to inform a person before publishing a story containing their private information.

Amid concerns of potential post-election violence, Zambians go to the polls to elect their president and members of the National Assembly. Levy Mwanawasa won the 2006 election, but died in August 2008 and was replaced by Rupiah Banda, who is seeking his first full term.

The UN General Assembly general debate opens in New York on Wednesday, with all eyes on Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, who, barring last-minute diplomatic developments, is expected to seek a unilateral declaration of Palestinian statehood.

On Thursday, a verdict is expected in the first case brought in under France’s ‘burka ban’ laws. Two women in the town of Meaux were arrested for wearing the niqab veil in May, with one of them banned from attending the last hearing because her face was still covered.

At the UN General Assembly, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe are both scheduled to speak. Ahmadinejad’s past speeches have prompted walkouts from some delegations, while Mugabe’s have typically been anti-western. British Prime Minister David Cameron, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Ivorian President Alassane Ouatarra are also on the bill.

The week draws to a close with some high-profile court hearings and elections. Closing arguments are set to begin in Amanda Knox’s murder appeal in Perugia on Friday, while Egyptian courts are busy with the testimony of ruling military council member Field Marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi at former President Hosni Mubarak’s trial on Saturday in Cairo, as well as the verdict in the Khaled Said murder trial in Alexandria. Two policemen are on trial for Said’s June 2010 death, which prompted widespread protests in Egypt at a time when police were rarely prosecuted.

In Bahrain, by-elections are held to replace 11 opposition lawmakers who resigned in March over government crackdowns on anti-regime protesters.

French Senate elections take place on Sunday, with half of the 346 seats up for grabs. Party performances will be closely watched ahead of next year’s presidential elections.

In Freiburg, Pope Benedict XVI wraps up a four-day visit to Germany to celebrate the 60th anniversary of his ordination as a priest

By Allan Williams

Former Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega has until Monday to appeal against his extradition to Panama. The 77-year-old is currently serving a prison sentence in France after being convicted of money laundering in July 2010.

On Tuesday attention turns to Japan when the Parliament elects its sixth Prime Minister in five years. Incumbent Naoto Kan announced he was stepping down over plummeting approval ratings, following the earthquake and tsunami earlier this year.

Wednesday sees Canada release its second quarter GDP figures. Fears of the economy contracting grew following an announcement earlier this month that manufacturing sales declined 1.5per cent in June, to their lowest level since November 2010.

Also on Wednesday South African President Jacob Zuma makes a state visit to Norway at the invitation of King Harald V. The two-day trip includes a wreath-laying ceremony at the National Monument and a meeting with Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg.

In the UK, on Thursday, repatriations of deceased British troops move from RAF Lyneham to RAF Brize Norton. RAF Lyneham and the parade through the nearby town of Wootton Bassett have made the headlines with the dignified way locals have mourned the fallen.

In Thailand that same day, Chiranuch Premchaiporn, editor of the liberal news website Prachatai, has her trial for lese majeste offences recommence. It is alleged that Premchaiporn failed to screen comments on her website that were critical of the Thai royal family, and if convicted faces up to 20 years in prison.

Attention turns stateside on Friday, when a US district court decides whether to order a retrial of former baseball star Roger Clemens, who was accused of lying to Congress in 2008 when he denied using anabolic steroids. The original trial was declared a mistrial on 14 July.

In London on Saturday the far-right English Defence League are expected to demonstrate in the borough of Tower Hamlets, against what it sees as militant Islam. The march is expected to be banned by the Home Secretary, but the action group Unite Against Fascism has arranged a counter-protest against the EDL.

On Sunday the UN Special Representative on Somalia Augustine Mahiga convenes a conference in the east African nation to provide clear timelines and benchmarks for the Transitional Federal Institutions.

And in Germany there’s a test for Chancellor Merkel’s coalition when state elections take place in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, with local elections coming under increasing scrutiny as a gauge of popularity for Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union.