August Bank Holiday Weekend
Pippingford Park, East Sussex, UK

Join us at Byline – the world’s first festival for independent journalism and freedom of speech – to debate, discuss, dance, laugh, and change the world. 

Throughout the festival Frontline will be running a curated series of talks and documentary screenings exploring two of this year’s festival themes: Defending Democracy and The Power of Journalism.

Frontline Events include:

DEBATE: The Extradition of Julian Assange – Friday 23 August, 3pm

We’ll be hearing from journalist Nick Davies, politician and activist Birgitta Jonsdottir and Frontline’s Vaughan Smith as they debate the legacy and the future for Assange, as the likelihood of his extradition to the USA looms.

TALK: The Parallel state: Truth, Lies & Political Fiction in Contemporary Turkey – Friday 23 August, 4.30pm

What began as a project about Turkish soap operas for award-winning photographer Guy Martin soon turned into a photographic exploration of the fault lines of truth, power and politics in Turkey. Chaired by journalist Jo Glanville.

FILM: Under the Wire – Saturday 26 August, 3pm

On 13 February 2012, war-correspondent Marie Colvin and photographer Paul Conroy entered war-ravaged Syria to cover the plight of civilians trapped in the besieged Homs, under attack by the Syrian army. Only one of them returned. This is their story.

FILM: White Right: Meeting the Enemy – Sunday 25 August, 10.30am 

Filmmaker Deeyah Khan meets U.S. neo-Nazis and white nationalists face to face and attends the now-infamous Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville as she seeks to understand the personal and political motivations behind the resurgence of far-right extremism in the U.S. Won 2018 Emmy for best international current affairs documentary. 

FILM: Unquiet Graves – Sunday 25 August, 3pm

Sean Murray‘s powerful film tells the story of how members of the RUC and UDR (a British Army Regiment) were involved in the murder of 120 innocent civilians in the targeted terrorising of the most vulnerable members of society during “the Troubles” conflict in Northern Ireland.

FILM: When Lambs Become Lions – Sunday 25 August, 6.20pm

In the Kenyan bush, a small-time ivory dealer fights to stay on top while forces mobilize to destroy his trade. When he turns to his younger cousin, a conflicted wildlife ranger who hasn’t been paid in months, they both see a possible lifeline.

TALK: The Price of Paradise – Monday 26 August, 1.10pm

Investigative journalist and author Iain Overton will be in conversation about his latest book, which looks at the influence of the suicide bomber on modern society from pre-revolutionary Russia to the present day.

The Frontline Cub Tent can be your base between events: take refreshment from our bar, try our delicious Norfolk mezze of food, and enjoy some laid-back entertainment including music, poetry and games.

Travel is just over an hour from London by train so bring your friends, colleagues and family. The festival is family friendly with lots of activities for children of all ages.

Tickets: Day and weekend tickets are available with a specially-discounted weekend rate for Frontline Club friends and members.

Links:

• For more information about the festival, visit the Byline website. 
• To keep up to date with news about Frontline events at Byline, sign up to our newsletter.

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.

This screening will be followed by a panel discussion with director Misja Pekel, writers Ben Judah and Peter Pomerantsev, and journalist Richard Gizbert.

735631&color=ff5500&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false”>
The rocket that shot down flight MH17 was actually intended for Vladimir Putin’s plane. That is, if we were to believe the headline Russia Today (RT) was running in the first hours after the tragedy. The disaster with the Malaysian Airlines flight wasn’t the first time the news channel stirred controversy with its reporting. In November of 2014, Ofcom gave RT a warning for impartial reporting on the uprising in Maidan Square in Kiev.

The channel was launched in 2005 under the name Russia Today to bring the Russian perspective on world events to a global audience. Almost ten years later, RT broadcasts in five languages and can be received almost all over the world. It is now the biggest news organisation on YouTube with 2 billion views, more then CNN and BBC together.

Its critics call it a bullhorn for Russian propaganda, RT claims only to show a different perspective on world events, and presents itself as an alternative to the mainstream media. In Misja Pekel’s The World According to Russia Today, current and former employees, journalists and media analysts dissect RT’s modus operandi. What is it like to work for the channel? How much influence does the Kremlin really have? And is it possible to discern between fact and opinion when Russian interests are at stake?

Directed by Misja Pekel
Duration: 40′
Year: 2015

The Panel:

Ben Judah is the author of Fragile Empire: How Russia Fell In And Out Of Love With Vladimir Putin published by Yale University Press.

Peter Pomerantsev is an author, TV producer, and Senior Fellow at the Legatum Institute. Nothing is True and Everything is Possible, his book about working in Russian media, was released by Faber in February. It has been short listed for the Pushkin House Award for Russia books, and was a BBC Book of the Week.

Richard Gizbert is a Canadian broadcast journalist. He is the presenter of the Listening Post on Al Jazeera English. Over the past 25 years, he has covered stories in more than 50 countries on five continents.

The online publication of the Innocence of Muslims video was the catalyst for violent and at times deadly protests in some countries. In the UK the series of events has pushed debates on freedom of expression and cultural sensitivity into the mainstream. For October’s First Wednesday an expert panel took to the Frontline Club stage to grapple with the big issues raised by the video and the violence.

Chaired by the delightfully dynamic Paddy O’Connell, the debate opened with each panelist outlining their stance. Whilst their views were varied, the speakers agreed that the British media had placed too great an emphasis on reporting extreme views rather than the reaction of moderates. The role of moderate thinkers and academics would come up later in the discussion.

In an examination of the root causes of the violent protests, long term American foreign policy was mooted as a cause by writer and academic Myriam Francois-Cerrah:

"It’s people in the third world who’ve been bombed, who’ve lived under dictatorships who for years have regarded the West and in particular the US as having played an important part in holding them down and they view the film…you’ve got to remember that for people in the Middle East it wasn’t clear that the American government had nothing to do with it. I know that’s absurd but preachers were coming in telling people that Hollywood had made this movie and that the government approved it."

This view was hotly contested by a number of the panel including The Times columnist David Aaronovitch:

"There is a perception that’s created by people who are on the right of political Islam which creates a sense of total victimhood and plays upon grievance at moments like this in order to get a reaction."

Maajid Nawaz who’s previously spent 13 years inside an Islamist organisation suggested that the causes lie somewhere between the two:

"We used to look at occurring geopolitical events and discuss how we could use those events to further our narrative that there’s a global war going on against Islam and Muslims… There’s a vested interest in two extremes. The anti-Islam extremists and Islamist extremists. Foreign policy is only half the truth."

Award winning author Tom Holland stressed the importance of belief that led to the protests:

"The reason we’ve had this response is that Mohammed is regarded by Muslims as the model of human behaviour. The ferocity of the response maybe reflects an over emphasis on certain elements in global Islam on the life of the Prophet and not on the divine."

The debate shifted to questions on censorship as a result of the deadly protests. Index on Censorship chief executive Kirsty Hughes expressed concern that self-censorship has already crept in when discussing religions like Islam:

"People in this country feel inhibited about whether they can analyse and challenge through our politics and our documentaries. Especially Islam. So there’s self-censorship going on."

Whilst the biggest cheer of the night was reserved for Aaronovitch‘s call for everyone to learn to get offended less readily, the panel agreed that in the globalised digital age these types of protests are likely to repeat.

Watch the event here: