Hosted in the Frontline Club Forum room – an iconic hub for international affairs and independent journalism in London – the evening will include a panel discussion around the book by some of its contributors and other experts followed by an iftar meal to meet the panelists.

Rana will discuss the challenges of running an investigative journalism organisation based in Jordan and working with journalists in extremely difficult circumstances around the region with Sarah Giaziri , Director of the Frontline Freelance Register, and Mark Hunter, who has worked with ARIJ to develop the ‘Story-Based Inquiry’ approach to investigative journalism.

We will also hear from BBC Special Correspondent Nawal Al-Maghafi and Mohamed Aboelgheit about their experience reporting from Yemen and other countries in the region.

The event will look at how ARIJ tries to build trust with audiences despite often having to publish their investigations internationally rather than in national media due to self-censorship and press freedom issues.

In this discussion, Rana will give an inside track on how her team approaches their investigations and what she has learnt from the last 14 years of running ARIJ, through the lens of some of ARIJ’s most successful investigations, including:

• Yemen and the global arms trade (Deutsche Welle, Dec 2018 / The Guardian, Nov 2018)
• Death In Service (BBC, Nov 2016): Osama Marsafawi ‘s investigation looked at 13 deaths inside Egypt’s Central Security Forces, and exposed a systematic pattern of mysterious deaths.
• Jordan’s secret shame (BBC Arabic, 2012): Uncovered cases where children had been seriously injured in Jordan’s private care homes for the mentally disabled.

Hannah Storm is the Director and CEO of the Ethical Journalism Network (EJN), a media consultant specialising in gender-based violence and gender-sensitive reporting, and the former director of the International News Safety Institute (INSI).

She is co-author of The Emotional Toll on Journalists Covering the Refugee Crisis and The Kidnapping of Journalists: Reporting from High Risk Conflict Zones, both written for the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at the University of Oxford and No Woman’s Land: On the Frontlines with Female Reporters, published by INSI, which explores the unique safety issues for women working in the media.

Rana Sabbagh is a founder of the award-winning ARIJ network, established in 2005, Rana Sabbagh has dedicated the last ‏ ‏35 years of her career as journalist, columnist and media trainer to promote free speech, independent media and human rights in a largely autocratic region. She is currently on sabbatical until end 2019 to help design the ARIJ strategy 2020 and beyond. As the ‎former chief editor of The Jordan Times, Sabbagh became the first Arab woman ‎in the history of the Levant to run a daily political newspaper. Prior to her work with the newspaper, she was a correspondent for Reuters International News Agency in Jordan and the Gulf for over a decade.

Dr. Mark Lee Hunter is a founding member of The Global Investigative Journalism Network, and the author of Story-Based Inquiry: A Manual for Investigative Journalists (UNESCO 2009). He is the founding academic director of the Future Media Management Programme at Stockholm School of Economics Riga. He has lectured in 40 countries on five continents.

Award-winning BBC Special Correspondent Nawal Al-Maghafi has been reporting on the Middle East since 2012. Over the past four years, she has been one of the few journalists conducting firsthand reporting of the ongoing conflict in Yemen; travelling extensively throughout the country, both in areas under Houthi rebel and government control. Her reporting has documented the deteriorating humanitarian situation in Yemen, including the bombing, starvation and spread of disease across Yemen. Her investigation into a 2015 attack on a Yemeni funeral — the deadliest of the conflict so far — provided key evidence in the case against weapons sales to Saudi Arabia by the US and UK. She has travelled across the Middle East to investigate how Mass Surveillance technology sold by BAE systems was being used by repressive Gulf states to monitor and stifle dissent by local human rights activists. Her reporting has also uncovered the complicity of the Egyptian army in the booming trade in organ trafficking across North Africa.

Mohamed Aboelgheit (Egypt) is an award-winning investigative journalist, columnist, and documentary editor. He is a contractor with Arab Reporters for Investigative Journalism (ARIJ) as a journalist and fact checker. His range of coverage included Egypt, Syria, Palestine and Yemen, that he produced recently his film with ARIJ “The End User” about tracking western weapons in Yemen. He won the Samir Kassir Award for Freedom of the Press, 2014 for the best opinion article.

Sarah Giaziri is the director of the Frontline Freelance Register (FFR), which was established in 2013 by a number of freelancers with support from the Frontline Club. It is a membership organisation representing freelance journalists exposed to risk while covering news, with the core objective to support their physical and mental well-being as well as campaigning for their safety and welfare. FFR also provides resources and support to freelance journalists on trauma and digital security training.  Before joining FFR Sarah was a programme officer for the Rory Peck Trust for 7 years covering the Middle East and North Africa and providing emergency assistance to freelance journalists in crisis. She also served as the Middle East and North Africa analyst for Freedom House’s Freedom of the Press Reports, covering Syria and Libya. She holds a degree in international relations and Italian, a master’s degree in human rights, and a postgraduate degree in law.

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.

On March 14, the audience at the Frontline Club travelled around the globe through five short films. All documentaries were related to current affairs, but the styles of storytelling ranged from comedy and animation, to the more classical approach.

Documentary programmer Wotienke Vermeer introduced the selection:

“Something I always try to demonstrate with the short films is that not every story is fit to be told in 52 or 90 minutes. We’re very much used to these lengths in documentary. Some films, like the last one tonight (The Only Flower), is enough to be told in six minutes.”

The first film, You Can’t Always Get What You Want by Scott Calonico, showed recently declassified White House tapes from when Lyndon B. Johnson was President. The humorous nine-minute film demonstrated his struggles with daily issues in the Oval Office, including misunderstandings with telephone operators, what he deemed to be a lack of “attractive Negros” in governmental positions, as well as limited dessert options at the White House. Director Scott Calonico also made the short film Mondo Ford, about former President Gerald Ford and his implication in the assassination of JFK.

Vladimir Putin in Deep Concentration, by directors Dana O’Keefe and Sasha Kliment, observed different manifestations of non-verbal communication in one of the world’s most powerful men. It examined the mystery behind Putin’s implacably blank face and his way of walking, and highlighted how Russians have no choice but to allow his ambitions to take over the country.

The longest film of the night, Cutting Loose by Finlay Pretsell and Adrian McDowall, showed the dreams and desires of contenders in a yearly hairdressing competition in Scottish prisons. The audience discovered how hairdressing is helping many of Scotland’s most dangerous inmates come to terms with their crimes and preparing them for life beyond prison bars.

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With Ink Ribbon Fingerprints, Pavel Braila gave a tribute to the typewriter, from its invention in the 1860’s to the closing of the last factory producing the machines in 2011. It demonstrated the typewriter’s close relationship with the industry of war and its key role in women’s emancipation.

The final short of the evening, The Only Flower by director César Pérez, followed botanist Steven Hemsley as he discovered how artificial flowers are replacing real ones throughout Beijing. As Hemsley analysed the fake plants as if they were new species, he demonstrated how people get used to the artificial aspects in their lives, comparing it with Beijing’s old quarter which was transformed into imitations to house fashion-brand shops.

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Freedom of expression or provocation? The appearance on YouTube of an anti-Islam film produced in the US and the subsequent publication of cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad in France have sparked protests in Muslim communities.

Embassies, cinemas and even popular western fast-food branches have been targeted by protestors. Join us as we examine the root causes of this wave of protest and violent attacks that have spread across the Middle East, Africa and Asia.

In the same month that Salman Rushdie’s memoir documenting his life following the publication of The Satanic Verses is published, these recent events again open the debate on freedom of expression and freedom of religion. We will be looking at how this plays out in a world more connected than ever before, where an individuals freedom to express themselves can reach millions.

Chaired by Paddy O’Connell of BBC Radio 4’s Broadcasting House.

With:

Maajid Nawaz, co-Founder and executive director of Quilliam, founder of Khudi and author of Radical: My Journey from Islamist Extremism to a Democratic Awakening. He was formerly on the UK national leadership for the global Islamist party Hizb ut-Tahrir (HT). Twitter: @MaajidNawaz

David Aaronovitch, writer, broadcaster, commentator and regular columnist for The Times. He is author of Voodoo Histories: The role of Conspiracy Theory in Modern History and Paddling to Jerusalem: An Aquatic Tour of Our Small Country. Twitter: @DAaronovitch

Myriam Francois-Cerrah, writer and journalist. She is currently a post-graduate researcher (DPhil) at Oxford University, focusing on Islamic movements in Morocco, and teaches Middle East politics. She writes for the Guardian, the New Statesman, The London Paper, Index on Censorship, The Cherwell, The F-word and others. Twitter: @MFrancoisCerrah

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

Tom Holland, an award winning and bestselling author of Rubicon, Persian Fire and Millennium. His most recent book In the Shadow of the Sword was accompanied by the Channel 4 documentary Islam: The Untold Story. Twitter: @holland_tom

A year ago Cairo’s "Twitterati" tweeted their revolution for 18 days in and around Tahrir Square. Young, urbane and highly motivated, their tweets revealed the truth of the scale of the uprising which Egypt’s state media sought to hide. It gave a street-level minute-by-minute account of the bravery and persistence of the Egyptian people which resulted in the downfall of a dictator. A year later Al Jazeera talks to some of those who posted on twitter to hear in more than 140 characters what they thought then, and what they feel now about developments since the heady days of February 2011. The film film is based on a book by Alex Nunns and Nadia Idle of the same name and published by OR books. For more information on the book see: http://www.orbooks.com/catalog/tweets-from-tahrir/ 

Screenings from the Frontline with Al Jazeera is a new initiative to contextualize the news and working experiences of journalists and filmmakers reporting out of the political hotspots of our time. It aims to bridge the gap between the British audience and the biggest events taking place in modern history by showing a pre-broadcast special report with the presence of people involved in making them. Each screening pays homage to the groundbreaking work of filmmakers and journalists that risk their lives to provide in-depth reports to people across the globe as and when the events occur. 

Director: Damian Clarke

Length: 48′

Year: 2012