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.

Directed by: Ruhi Hamid
Executive produced by: Christopher Mitchell
Country: UK/India
Runtime: 48′

He’s a household name in Ghana, but few have seen his face. Investigative journalist Anas Aremewaw Anas is on a mission to ferret out corruption in every corner of his country. Wearing an array of disguises, he regularly goes deep undercover to trap suspected criminals – splashing their faces across newspapers and handing them over to delighted police.

Despite his notoriety, Anas’ methods attract criticism from other journalists, who believe his investigations go too far in luring and catching suspected criminals to achieve sensationalist stories.

Director Ryan Mullins follows Anas during a chaotic, adrenaline-filled period which sees him revelling in fulfilling his three-pronged approach: naming, shaming and jailing. Whilst some journalists look on in dismay at his tactics, Anas enjoys being worshipped by the people, and is welcomed back to his old elementary school like a rock star. But as he begins his next big case – the exposure of a church he suspects is guilty of human trafficking – the lines begin to blur, as we witness the human fallout of his actions.

Director: Ryan Mullins
Producers: Bob Moore, Mila Aung-Thwin
Running time: 90′
Year: 2014
Country: Canada
Distributor: Dogwoof

In this double Sundance winner, Matthew Heineman takes us deep into the world of Mexican drug cartels by embedding himself with two vigilante groups on either side of the US-Mexico border.

In Arizona’s Altar Valley — a narrow, 52-mile-long desert corridor known as Cocaine Alley — Tim “Nailer” Foley, an American veteran, heads a small paramilitary group called Arizona Border Recon, whose goal is to halt Mexico’s drug wars from seeping across the border. Meanwhile, in the Mexican state of Michoacán, Dr. Jose Mireles, a small-town physician known as “El Doctor,” shepherds a citizen uprising against the Knights Templar, the violent drug cartel that has wreaked havoc on the region for years.

Heineman repeatedly places himself in harm’s way, filming the chaos as Mireles’ vigilante group begins taking over towns – in the process adapting many of the violent tactics of the drug lords they’re trying to overpower. A visceral journey into North America’s heart of darkness, Cartel Land is a chilling meditation on the breakdown of order and the borderline where life trumps law.

Director: Matthew Heineman
Country: USA/Mexico
Running time: 98′
Distributed by Dogwoof

On 10 June, world leaders and NGOs will gather in London for a global summit with the aim to create “irreversible momentum against sexual violence in conflict and practical action that impacts those on the ground”. Ahead of the summit, we will be joined by a panel of speakers who have been working towards this aim for many years. They will be discussing what needs to be done to make it a reality.

The eastern region of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has been described as the “rape capital of the world”. Increased cases of sexual violence against women in DRC coincided with the emerging armed conflicts of the early 1990s. Although Congolese law criminalises many forms of sexual violence, these laws are often not enforced.

With a particular focus on the DRC our panel will be mapping out what is being done to help individuals and societies affected by sexual violence and what more needs to be done. We will be asking what measures can be put in place to help victims bring the perpetrators to justice.

Chaired by Liz Ford, deputy editor of The Guardian’s Global Development website.

The panel:

Doctor Juliet Cohen is head of doctors at UK-based charity Freedom from Torture. She specialises in the examination of victims of torture, domestic violence and trafficking and has written over 1000 forensic reports documenting the psychological and physical sequelae of torture, including rape, for use in international protection claims. In 2012 she provided an expert witness statement on late disclosure of sexual violence for the European Court of Human Rights and is a commentator to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office on the new International Protocol on Preventing Sexual Violence in Conflict.

Fiona Lloyd-Davies is an award winning filmmaker and photojournalist who has worked in areas of conflict for over 20 years. She’s been working in the Democratic Republic of Congo since 2001 making films for the BBC, Al Jazeera, Channel 4 News and France24. In recent years her work has been supported by the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting, and led to the completion of Seeds of Hope – a feature length documentary that tells the story of women survivors of sexual violence in Eastern DRC through the extraordinary life and work of multiple rape survivor, Masika Katsuva. Seeds of Hope will be shown as part of the Global Summit to End Sexual Violence in Conflict, details here. She has just finished a film about the Minova rape trial which will be shown on BBC Newsnight.

Serge-Eric is a co-founder and member of the Survivors Speak OUT! (SSO) network. SSO is a group of torture survivors and former clients of Freedom from Torture who draw on their lived experience of torture and seeking protection through asylum in the UK, to influence decision-makers and raise public awareness of the challenges facing survivors trying to rebuild their lives. The network has worked with the Foreign and Commonwealth Office on the development of a new International Protocol on the Documentation and Investigation of Sexual Violence in Conflict.

Sarah Cotton is the public affairs and communications advisor for the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) Mission in the UK and Ireland. She leads the work of the ICRC with Parliament and works in both the UK and Ireland to communicate ICRC policy, operations and concerns. She also works to develop and disseminate ICRC policy on sexual violence and violence against healthcare. In this capacity she travelled to Lebanon in April 2014 to join an assessment of sexual violence in Syria.

Photograph: Andrew McConnell, 2008. A woman who was raped by a government soldier recovers at the Heal Africa hospital in Goma. Sexual violence has become systematic in DRC with the brutality of attacks often leaving the victims with severe damage to reproductive organs, resulting in multiple fistulas and incontinence. An average of 1,100 rape cases are reported each month.

October will mark the tenth year that Mikhail Khodorkovsky has spent behind bars. Once Russia’s richest and most successful businessman, he was arrested and imprisoned a decade ago, on charges that many regard as politically motivated. Since then he has faced new charges extending his sentence and although he is due for release in August 2014, doubts remain about whether this will take place.

We will be examining the Khodorkovsky case and, following the charges against Alexei Navalny, we will be looking at the wider issue of imprisonment of opposition figures in Russia. Will the ramping up of protests and support for Alexei Navalny force a change in the conduct of Russian politics?

A selection of Khodorkovsky’s writing will be adapted for an exclusive performance on the night, directed by Noah Birksted-Breen, the artistic director of the Sputnik Theatre Company. Birksted-Breen has previously directed a production of Elena Gremina’s play One Hour and Eighteen Minutes, dealing with the death of renowned Russian whistleblower Sergei Magnitsky. More information on Birksted-Breen and the Sputnik Theatre Company can be found here: sputniktheatre.co.uk. It will be performed by Jonathan McGuinness, who is currently appearing in The Ritual Slaughter of Gorge Mastromas at the Royal Court Theatre.

Chaired by Edward Lucas, the international editor of The Economist and author of Deception: Spies, Lies and how Russia Dupes the West. He has covered Russia and Central and Eastern Europe for more than 20 years.

The panel:

Sir Tony Brenton is a former British Diplomat, he served as Ambassador to Russia from 2004-2008. In 2009 He became a Fellow of Wolfson College Cambridge and is currently writing a book on Russian history.

Ben Judah reported for Reuters in Moscow before joining the European Council on Foreign Relations in London as a Russia analyst. He is currently a visiting fellow at the European Stability Initiative and is author of Fragile Empire: How Russia Fell in and Out of Love with Vladimir Putin.

Tonia Samsonova is a foreign correspondent working for Russian radio station Echo Moskvy, she is also a host on TVRain, an independent online TV channel. In 2013 she moved to London to investigate Russian corruption.

In February this year Private First Class Bradley Manning pleaded guilty to sending restricted documents to Wikileaks in violation of military regulations, making him the source of the largest intelligence leak in US history. Ahead of his trial in June we will be examining the charges he faces and the implications if he is found guilty.

In his statement to the court he talked about “revealing the true costs of war” and how he “believed that if the general public, especially the American public, had access to the information… this could spark a domestic debate on the role of the military and our foreign policy in general”.

Manning has denied some of the most serious charges such as “aiding the enemy” which would see him face a life sentence, but has pleaded guilty to 10 out of 22 charges, which could carry a sentence of up to 20 years.

We will be discussing the questions raised by this case about the fate of whistleblowers and the future of relationships between journalists and their sources.

Chaired by Richard Gizbert, presenter of The Listening Post on Al Jazeera English.

The panel:

Naomi Colvin is a London-based writer and activist. In late 2010 she founded UK Friends of Bradley Manning, which successfully lobbied the UK government to recognise Bradley Manning’s dual citizenship status.

Professor David Leigh was the Guardian‘s investigations editor until 2013 and is a professor of journalism at City University. He is one of Britain’s leading investigative journalists, and winner of the 2007 Paul Foot Award for Campaigning Journalism. He is co-author of WikiLeaks: Inside Julian Assange’s War on Secrecy.

Chase Madar is a human rights attorney in New York, where he specializes in youth law, LGBT law and disability law. He reports and reviews for the London Review of Books, Le Monde diplomatique, CounterPunch, Al Jazeera, and the TLS. He is author of The Passion of Bradley Manning: The Story Behind the Wikileaks Whistleblower.

The event on the 8 February at the Frontline Club was a screening of Justice for Sale, followed by a Q&A with Femke van Velzen, one half of a documentary duo – twin sisters who make up IF Productions. For Femke and Ilse, this is their third film about the Democratic Republic of Congo. The Q&A was moderated by Sandra Whipham of the BritDoc Foundation as Justice for Sale was part of the Good Pitch Europe in 2011.

The film exposes the less seen and more controversial side of the issue of sexual violence in the country, looking at breaches of justice for the perpetrators rather than the victims. The van Velzen sisters’ first two documentaries brought light to the widespread problem of sexual violence in the country, largely from the perspective of its victims.

The audience was interested to know how the film makers came to represent the other side of the story. Van Velzen answered:

“Journalists that go to the Congo write about the victims. But most of the time that is it and they move on. It takes a very long time to find the deeper layers. For us it was really valuable to stay there longer, to really get to the point of seeing it from different points of view. To make a film about a perpetrator was really interesting.”

Justice for Sale examines the corruption rife in Congo’s justice system through the narrative of one lawyer’s attempts to pick apart the case of a young man sentenced to 10 years imprisonment for rape.

“It is interesting how we came across this story. Since 2006 there was this new law so people could actually be convicted of rape, and in 2008 we got the opportunity to follow a military court case for a couple of days. This story stood out. We were not lawyers but I was convinced that on the basis of what was presented he should never be convicted.”

At first, the filmmakers were unsure how to use the footage and whether this case had been an exception or was was an example of what was happening on a more regular basis.

“We then organised two workshops where we showed it to different human rights lawyers and NGOs. They all responded that this is not just one case, it is happening on a larger scale. We then realised this is something we have to dive into”.

One of the most illuminating questions of the night asked how the lawyer – Claudine, who had originally campaigned for the law against rape in 2006 – felt about a film that picked holes in the progress made against sexual violence.

“For Claudine, sexual violence is a huge problem, but if you are dealing with the justice system you have to be clear about everything or it can really endanger the law. The purpose of the documentary is to open a discussion; to show the other side of the coin and that’s what makes the documentary interesting. The NGOs all reacted in very different ways. But some were relieved that they could now debate this side of the story.”

Visit IF Productions to find out more about the trilogy and to learn about the Mobile Cinema Foundation that Ilse and Femke van Velzen have launched as part of their multi-media outreach strategy that includes radio campaigns, soap operas and cartoons.

At an event hosted by the Frontline Club, an expert panel of speakers shed light on the ongoing oppression of political opposition in Bahrain, one of the most under-reported aspects of the Arab Spring, and the government’s systematic use of Western public relations companies to manage the regime’s global reputation.

In the early months of 2011, thousands of Bahraini citizens took to the streets to demand greater representation and more equitable treatment of the country’s Shia citizens, who make up 70% of the population. Dozens were killed, and hundreds more were incarcerated or went missing.

But, as moderator and The Guardian‘s Comment is Free editor Brian Whitaker explained, the story has been overshadowed by events in Syria and elsewhere in the Middle East, and buried by governments in both the West and the Gulf region that see Bahrain’s royal family as political allies.

“This doesn’t justify the repression that is happening in Bahrain, and it doesn’t reduce the need for people’s rights there,” he said.

Organised by advocacy group Bahrain Watch, the event highlighted the organisation’s efforts to draw attention not only to the brutality of the Bahraini government, but also to its use of international PR firms to hide its activities from the global community.

“Opposition has been suppressed by methods including incarceration and torture, extra-judicial killing and the excessive use of force,” said Marc Owen Jones, doctoral candidate at Durham University and member of Bahrain Watch.

“This has resulted in the death of at least 60 protestors, and probably more.”

The government is using what Jones described as “soft tactics” to influence international opinion, including the recruitment of international PR firms to “delegitimise the pro-reform movement and push the government narrative.”

“Since February 2011, contracts have been awarded to 18 companies, 15 of which total $32.5m – and this is a conservative estimate,” said Jones. “All of them are based in the US and the UK…the largest being M&C Saatchi and Bell Pottinger.”

These activities continue unhindered by the governments of the UK and the US, earning London the unofficial title of the “world’s reputation laundering capital”, said Jones.

“It’s worth exploring whether these companies can be targeted here,” said pannelist Adam Hunt, a human rights solicitor and partner in Deighton Pierce Glynn.

“Companies can be excluded from competing for UK government contracts if they are found guilty of professional misconduct.”

Bahrain’s leader, King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifah, has set up a commission of enquiry to investigate abuses by the regime. But the panel concluded that although the commission’s findings were important, its report was nothing more than window-dressing.

“There continue to be daily allegations of abuse of protestors and there have been no convictions of anyone with any level of responsibility [within the regime],” said Carla Ferstman, director of international human rights organisation REDRESS.

“The most galling aspect is that they are documenting human rights violations but not doing anything about them,” said Jones. “It’s just a testament to impunity.”

The regime has hidden the worst of its excesses from the public eye and now tortures people in secret detention centres, explained Mohammad Al Tajir, a human rights lawyer who was tortured and detained for more than three months by the regime for speaking publicly in favour of the release of political prisoners.

When Al Tajir was arrested, his bank account was frozen and his wife was told that he was dead.

“The problem is that there is no will to bring justice,” said Al Tajir. “Confession is still the only evidence in most cases. Torture has not stopped. Out of 20 people arrested, 10 will have to go to hospital.”

Asked what they expected of Bahrain in the months to come, none of the panellists had high hopes.

“I’m not optimistic at all,” said Jones. “Maybe we’ll see the release of some prisoners. But I don’t see any sincerity in any of the reforms.”

Video streaming by Ustream

It’s not easy to hear of how Russian lawyer Sergei Magnitsky was killed.

“You need to be sitting down for this story” said chair, Edward Lucas, foreign correspondent with the Economist. “Could those people at the back find a space?”

William Browder was once the largest foreign portfolio investor in Russia with the Hermitage fund before he was thrown out of the country in 2005.

Sergei Magnitsky

“Twenty-five police officers raided my office in Moscow” Browder said, “and 25 more police officers raided the office of my American law firm. . . . One of the lawyers protested at the seizure of these documents and he was beaten so badly he was hospitalised for three weeks.”

Browder hired seven lawyers to find out more about the mess, one of them was a 36-year-old Sergei Magnitsky. They started an investigation that unearthed a high-level attempt to siphon a high-volume of funds. It was a complicated scheme that lead to a false tax refund of $230m that came – not from Browder‘s company but from the Russian taxpayer.

Six out of seven of Browder’s lawyers left  Russia for safety. Sergei Magnitsky decided to stay.

“He testified against the police officers who did the raid used to get the documents . . . and one month later the same police officers came to his home . . . and arrested him and put him in pre-trial detention and then began to torture him.”

He was later sent to the infamous Butyrka prison and got very sick after months of serious mistreatment.

“They did move him to a facility that had an emergency room but instead of treating him in an emergency room they put him in an isolation cell and chained him to a bed and allowed eight riot guards with rubber batons to beat him until he died.”

Browder is now trying to push the Sergei Magnitsky Rule of Law Accountability Act through US congress. If approved, this would allow assets of those responsible for his detention, abuse or death to be seized.

Corruption

Brutal truths about the Russian state unravel through the Magnitsky story. From a citizen’s point of view, bribery is a part of what Masha Gessen, author of a recent book on Putin, says is the “daily humiliation of living in Russia”.

But she said corruption in the country should be concerning from a strategic point of view, too.

“Russia happens to have one of the two largest arsenals of nuclear arms that’s reason enough to pay attention to the fact that . . . it’s extremely corrupt and on the brink of collapse.”

According to Browder the rot runs deep. He cites the beginnings of the investigation that ultimately led to Sergei Magnitsky’s murder.

“I discovered . . . that all the Russian companies I was investing in were basically losing all the money they should have been sharing with the shareholders with a bunch of corrupt officials and corrupt management.”

Putin

Gessen said the Russian president models government on the Russian spy agency – his former employer.

“I think Putin seriously believes that the KGB is the best thing ever invented. And he’s done everything in his power – and that’s a lot –  to re-shape Russia in the image of the KGB.

“The KGB’s a closed system, it’s best on personal connections and paranoia, where information comes in and doesn’t go out.”

This is the system that allowed Magnitsky’s death. As Browder said when asked by the audience what happened to his Russian investments, “I didn’t lose any money, I lost something far more precious; the life of a young man.”

Against a backdrop of growing discontent, and widespread allegations of fraud, Russia’s recent elections heralded Vladimir Putin’s re-election to the presidency. The man who many still saw as Russia’s de facto leader will now resume his tenure, four years after ostensibly ceding power to Dmitry Medvedev. 

In light of these developments a panel of experienced commentators gathered at the Frontline Club to assess the past, present and future of Putin’s Russia. The evening was chaired by Edward Lucas, The Economist’s Deputy International Editor, in discussion with Masha Gessen, a Russian-American journalist and author, and Bill Browder, an outspoken shareholder activist who was the largest foreign investor in Russia until 2005, when he was banned from the country.

Gessen, author of The Man Without a Face: The Unlikely Rise of Vladimir Putin, described Putin’s Russia as a mafia state in which large-scale corruption at the top relies on small-scale corruption at the bottom. She claimed that Putin “thinks the KGB is the best thing that was ever invented”, adding that she saw him as pleonexic – in that he suffers from the insatiable desire to have what rightfully belongs to others.

Browder agreed, describing his own experience as “the story of how bad things have got in Russia, and emblematic of the bare face of Russia from the beginning to the end.” He began to withdraw his money when he realised that all of his companies were hemorrhaging money to corrupt officials. A saga ensued in which Russian police seized his assets, took control of his companies and – amongst other things – conspired to reclaim $230m that Browder’s companies had paid in tax.

What followed has now become an infamous tale of state corruption and brutality. Sergei Magnitsky, the lawyer investigating matters on Browder’s behalf, was imprisoned and eventually murdered in custody. 

His is not the only case of this kind, as Browder and Gessen observed, but the unfailing bureaucracy of all involved led to the publication of an exact account of the events, written by Magnitsky, and a list of those responsible. Lucas described the Magnitsky list as “one of the most effective fires lit under the regime”, and Browder summarised the reasons behind its impact: 

“The people who committed these crimes didn’t do it because of religious intolerance, or ideological intolerance. They did this for money.”

Browder suggested that the regime was unsustainable, given the prevalence of events like this, but the panel recognised the inherent difficulty in ensuring a genuine transition of power. Gessen offered her own analysis of the regime’s ability to adapt and protect itself:

“With the whole reset campaign of the last 3 years, there were a lot of people who fell into Medvedev’s trap. The best way to think of Putin and Medvedev is of a president and a first lady: the first lady gets to reach out to people, and perform humanitarian gestures. That humanitarian gesture deceived a lot of people.”

Despite this, Gessen noted that the West is an important influence, even to the most corrupt Russian officials:

“More important than anything else, it’s the place where they keep their money. You can’t keep your money in Russia, there is always somebody better connected than you are.”

And, as the question and answer period drew to a close, Lucas suggested that Putin’s hold on power might begin to loosen if another disaster on the scale of the Kursk or Beslan were to strike:

“He handles these situations very badly. The people who’ve got a huge stake in the survival of the regime may wonder if they can keep it going for a few more years by pushing him downwards or sideways.”

Watch the event here: