The screening will be followed by a Q&A with Poulsen, moderated by Katie Arnold, a freelance journalist who has reported on Myanmar’s political and social development.

Speakers: 

Karen Stokkendal Poulsen is a writer and director with a background in foreign affairs and political science. Her 2014 documentary “The Agreement” was nominated for Best Nordic Documentary at the Göteborg Film Festival, Best Medium-Length Documentary at the Krakow Film Festival, and the F:ACT Award at the Copenhagen International Documentary Festival. She is currently working on developing a fictional television series based on the film. “On the Inside of a Military Dictatorship” premiered at the 2019 Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival in April 2019.

Katie Arnold is a freelance journalist previously based in Yangon, Myanmar where she covered the country’s political and social development. Her main area of specialism is the Rohingya crisis – having produced videos, articles and photography for Al Jazeera English, CNN and the BBC among others. She has also provided live TV commentary to BBC Radio 5, TRT World and France 24.

This screening will be followed by a Q&A with director Craig Atkinson via Skype.

Do Not Resist is an urgent and powerful exploration of the rapid militarisation of the police in the United States. Opening on startling on-the-scene footage in Ferguson, Missouri, the film then broadens its scope to present scenes from across the country — a conference presentation where the value of high-end weapons technologies is presented to potential police buyers; a community that has just received its very own military-grade tank; and a SWAT team arriving at a home to execute a warrant. The cumulative effect of these vignettes paints a startling picture of the direction in which American law enforcement is headed.

Craig Atkinson filmed his directorial debut over two years and in 11 states. Through keen and thoughtful observances, Atkinson deftly presents the characters and stories that comprise this pressing issue. The result reveals a rare and surprising look into the increasingly disturbing realities of American police culture.

Directed by: Craig Atkinson
Country: United States
Year: 2016
Runtime: 73′

Since the Paris attacks on 13 November, world leaders have seemingly put grievances aside to unite in a newly energised fight against Daesh – but what can be achieved by bombing the already bombed-out cities of Syria?

If Daesh is pushed back militarily then what comes next? Who fills the void and how do you stop from merely driving them elsewhere? Even if military gains are made, the ideology remains. Those involved in the attacks in Paris were French and Belgium citizens – how do we tackle radicalisation both online and on the streets of Europe, and prevent rising fear and the polarisation of communities?

The recent downing of a Russian jet by Turkish forces highlights the perils of combat aircraft from different countries operating in the same theatre. How can this be managed logistically without causing another major diplomatic incident?

For the first First Wednesday of 2016 we will be bringing together a panel to answer these questions and to discuss the diplomatic, logistical and ideological challenges of the fight against Daesh.

Chaired by

David Loyn, foreign correspondent for the BBC for over 30 years, most recently Afghanistan correspondent.

The panel

Richard Spencer is Middle East editor of The Daily and Sunday Telegraph. He moved to the Middle East from China in 2009, based in Dubai and then Cairo. Since then, he has reported regularly from Egypt, Libya, Syria and Iraq, and was in Aleppo when Jabhat al-Nusra split to give birth to Daesh.

Shiraz Maher is a senior research fellow at the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation, King’s College London and is currently coordinating the centre’s research on the Syrian and Iraqi conflicts.

Robin Yassin-Kassab is a journalist, author of the novel The Road From Damascus and co-author with Leila al-Shami of Burning Country: Syrians in Revolution and War.

Azadeh Moaveni is a journalist, writer and lecturer in journalism at Kingston University. She was TIME magazine Middle East correspondent and is author of Lipstick Jihad and Honeymoon in Tehran.

On Monday 26 October, renowned Egyptian writer, feminist and activist Nawal El Saadawi joined journalist Wendell Steavenson and a packed audience at the Frontline Club for a discussion that spanned the topics of linguistic philosophy, feminism and globalisation – all of which were explored in the context of El Saadawi‘s own life experiences and recent developments in Egyptian politics.

Sitting in same room as legend #NawalElSaadaei @frontlineclub pic.twitter.com/93hzphE6My

— Nahla Al-Ageli (@NahlaInk) October 26, 2015

The discussion began with a focus on the United States’ continued military aid to Egypt. This was something El Saadawi felt passionately against, not just in Egypt’s case but on a global level. “Fair trade, not aid,” she said.

“The 2011 revolution was hijacked by the United States working with Egyptian politicians. Hilary Clinton came to Tahrir Square as soon as the revolution began. Why?”


The conversation then moved onto the subject of globalisation, and how colonising powers have always played the game of “divide and rule.”

El Saadawi expanded: “When Sadat and Reagan came, they brought the Muslim Brothers. Why? They wanted to fragment the country by religion. They wanted to fragment the country by class. They wanted to fragment the army. What is the difference between Syria and Egypt now? Syria is completely fragmented, because the army is fragmented. And this is why we are unified in comparison. This is why the Americans are against Sisi.”

When Steavenson questioned her about the way the Egyptian government has been punishing members of the Muslim Brotherhood with imprisonment and death sentencing, El Saadawi said: “I am against the death penalty. I am against putting anybody in prison. I am against all that. But I am also against a religious state. Whether Islamic, Jewish, or Christian. We cannot have true equality in any religious state, because all religions oppress women.”


She continued by explaining the extent to which gender inequality has been rooted in religion: “In the three major monotheistic religions, Adam was set free as an innocent, while Eve was a sinner because she ate from the tree of knowledge. Women are not expected to be equal. Why do you think I’ve had three husbands? Because they hated my intelligence. They wanted a stupid woman.”


Even though El Saadawi‘s main work and research focus revolves around injustice, she revealed her enduring optimism in the face of adversity. “I am always optimistic. I learned very much about this in the experience of prison. The women I was with were very pessimistic, because Sadat told us he will kill us. So every day they woke up crying, and I started dancing. I told them we will live and be free; just to have that idea gave me hope. When you have hope, you inspire people with hope, and hope is power. In the worst situations, I am hopeful.”


Steavenson asked about the moment when her sense of justice came into being, and why she initially became motivated to challenge injustice.

El Saadawi explained that when she was 7 and 8 years old, she felt something was not right in the way that she was treated in comparison with her brother. Her older brother was lazy and spoilt, whereas she was hardworking and neglected.

“During Eid, I received half the money that my brother received in gifts. I asked my parents why. They said because God said so. They thought they would shut me up by saying ‘God’. So my first letter ever when I was 8 years old was to God, but I still haven’t got an answer!”

L to R: Richard Cockett, Hkanhpa Sadan, Wai Hnin Pwint Thon, Robert Cooper, Paul French

Meanwhile certain regions of Burma are about to learn how to cast a ballot on November 8, ethnic minorities in rural areas are fleeing their homes that are being burnt by the military forces.

On Tuesday September 22, a panel of experts and activists discussed the uncertain future of the country that has been suffering the longest ongoing civil war.

Shortly after Paul French, commentator on Asia chairing the panel, invited the speakers to make their pitch about the current situation, it became clear that opinions about the value of recent reforms value immensely.

Meanwhile general secretary of the Kachin National Council Hkanhpa Sadan and campaigns officer at Burma Campaign UK Wai Hnin Pwint Thon said they can be hardly excited about the election, The Economist correspondent Richard Cockett  and adviser to EU representatives Robert Cooper sustained that the progress has been palpable.

“What western community did was they gave us furniture so far and television, but we still don’t have a roof to live under. They gave us the furniture, because they want the garden,” Mr Sadan outlined the perspective of the Burmese.

Ms Pwint Thon criticised the constitution introduced in 2008, which in her view gives a fake illusion of a legal state. “The aim of the constitutions is to create an appearance of change while still holding on to military power and while giving the military the power to decide on economy and politics of the country,” she said.

Mr Cockett underlined that the reforms should be considered in a relevant context. “You should judge Burma against the standards of the region, not against standards of western democracy or British parliamentary democracy,” he said numbering increasingly oppressive countries like Thailand, Malaysia, Vietnam and Cambodia.

According to him, the idea of restoring order in the country is inaccurate. “This country has never experienced order. It’s never experienced peace. Indeed, it’s never experienced an existence as a coherent country at all,” Mr Cockett said referring to the conflict ongoing since 1948.

Mr Cooper reckoned that the upcoming election might become the fairest that the country will have witnessed. “It’s been contested by a large number of parties. It’s got a large number of observers, very large number of local monitors and a large number of international observers there. And it’s not happened before,” he said.

Nevertheless, all the speakers concluded that the way towards genuine democracy, peace with ethnic minorities and complete freedom of expression will be long and bumpy.

Ms Pwint Thon criticised the western “wait and see” approach and Mr Cockett admitted that the economic withdrawal from Myanmar didn’t help the situation either. “It meant that the best practices left the country and they were left with Chinese companies who didn’t care or ever thought about human rights,” he said.

The panel also agreed that the anticipated election might not be that key in the transition. One of the root causes of the conflict is oppression of the country’s minorities.

Mr Sadan underlined that Myanmar has introduced one of the most discriminative religious laws in the world. Ms Pwint Thon added it is not only Muslims, but also women who are not treated equally.

Mr Cockett spoke about a “very poisonous sectarian atmosphere” that he considers one of the real dangers of the election. “It could be a real flashpoint that they exploit all this in the run-up to the election and even after the election. It’ll be extremely explosive in Rakhine state itself where the Rohingya have been entirely disenfrenchised and the buddhist Rakhine nationalists will use this to rally opinion and if the attack Muslims,” he said.

On 8 November, the people of Myanmar will go to the polls in an election that is being seen as a step towards full democracy after nearly half a century of military rule.

Myanmar has seen reforms come into effect since 2010, when military rule was replaced by a military-backed civilian government, but how far have these reforms gone and what more needs to be done?

One of the largest and once one of the richest countries in Southeast Asia, what impact have successive military regimes had on Myanmar?

With a panel of experts we will explore what life is like in Myanmar, the political and ethical divisions, and what change the election will bring.

Chaired by Paul French, an author and widely published analyst and commentator on Asia, Asian politics and current affairs. He is author of North Korea: State of Paranoia and the international bestseller Midnight in Peking.

The panel:

Hkanhpa Sadan is general secretary of the Kachin National Council, Kachin National Organisation. He is one of the founding members of the exile Kachin political movement based in the UK with branches across Europe, the US and Asia.

Dr Richard Cockett is editor and correspondent at The Economist. He is the author of several books, including Sudan: Darfur and the Failure of an African state and Blood, Dreams and Gold: The Changing Face of Burma.

Robert Cooper worked for ten years for the European Union High Representative, Javier Solana and later Catherine Ashton. From 2012 he served a further year as a special adviser on Myanmar. He served as a diplomat from 1970 to 2002, his posts included Tokyo, Brussels, Bonn, head of the policy planning staff and Asia director.

Wai Hnin Pwint Thon is a campaigns officer at Burma Campaign UK. She is the daughter of Mya Aye, one of the leaders of the 88-generation Students Group. Born in Rangoon – because of her father’s activities she faced harassment and discrimination and left the country in 2006 to continue her studies.

PLEASE NOTE THIS EVENT WILL BE FILMED AND STREAMED LIVE ON OUR YOUTUBE CHANNEL

Photo: Htoo Tay Zar. Aung San Suu Kyi greeting supporters from Bago State in 2011.

In 2014, western troops drew down combat operations after 13 years of fighting against the Taliban in Afghanistan. This left the Afghan Army to cope with an enemy that some of the most powerful militaries on earth have failed to defeat.

In their new documentary Tell Spring Not to Come This Year, screened at the Frontline Club on Monday 18 May, directors Michael McEvoy and Saeed Taji Farouky follow an Afghan National Army (ANA) battalion for a year as they confront the transition of power in Helmand Province — one of the most unstable areas of the country.

This intimate portrayal, which saw the filmmakers taking fire from the Taliban alongside their subjects, was made possible by McEvoy’s work as a liaison officer for the British Army in Helmand. The film has already gathered the International Human Rights award and Audience Award for Best Documentary during its world premiere at the Berlinale in February, and will screen again in the UK on Saturday 6 June at the Sheffield Doc/Fest.

Missing Afghan Voices
Almost everything Western audiences see from Afghanistan is about foreign troops, said Taji Farouky, arguing that now that chapter is over “we know almost nothing about who’s going to inherit that war.”

Those are the people the filmmakers wanted to make a film about. “The whole point was that for the past 14 years we’ve heard almost nothing from, not only the Afghans, but particularly the Afghan army,” said Taji Farouky. That’s why, he explained, there’s no voiceover in the film, which is told completely by Afghan soldiers. “It would be unjust for us to now speak on their behalf,” he said.

Full house @frontlineclub at @saeedtaji film premiere http://t.co/c4xUd5VcNj and a great Q&A session with filmmakers pic.twitter.com/AWm4S1pDv8

— Usama Fayyad (@usamaf) May 18, 2015

Amazing Access
McEvoy is what you would call a “linguistic genius,” Taji Farouky said, citing the fact that he breezed through a 15-month military college course to learn Farsi in only four months. He also speaks Arabic and had a good grasp of Pashto before shooting wrapped up.

But it wasn’t only his language skills that allowed the two to create such an intimate film.

“The battalion was one of six that I worked with, and I actually spent quite a lot of time with that particular unit,” said McEvoy of his time in Helmand as a liaison officer. “The captain that you see, we spent a lot of time together. We got to know each other really well,” he said. “He was the first person I approached with the idea about the film. Once he understood the reason [for making the film], he was quite keen to help out.”

Why they fight
Even though a soldier in the film complains at one point that he hasn’t been paid for nine months, and another says he hasn’t been on leave in four or five months, the battalion appears to remain committed to their mission.

“Unemployment is obviously pretty big in Afghanistan. Many of the soldiers are from the north and they would join up in big groups of lads from their villages just to find work,” McAvoy said, adding that the ANA is one of the most stable employers in the entire country.

Although that’s a big part of why many join up, “there is a genuine sense of national pride: ‘We are Afghan, the Taliban are enemies of Afghanistan. We genuinely want to be here to defend our country,’” he said. “I think it’s simpler when you’re fighting in your own country and you feel like you’re defending your own home than if you go on some foreign campaign.”

It’s a testament that they stick on, he continued. “They’re not paid very well, they don’t go on leave for ages, the food sucks — big time. The U.S. stopped paying for their food budget and the ministry of finance turned to the ministry of defence and said ‘well, we haven’t got any money.’ So basically they just cut the food budget in half. By the end it was a piece of bread for breakfast, a plate of plain rice for lunch, and then for dinner some sort of watery soup with essence of meat.”

What about the civilians?
Although McEvoy and Taji Farouky couldn’t go anywhere without soldiers in tow, Taji Farouky said that he got the sense there was “a fairly functional relationship” between the army and the population. “Yes the army was asserting itself and could be quite aggressive,” he said. “But generally… there seemed to be a fairly good balance. I think there’s a lot of confusion from the military because they never know who’s with them and who’s against them.”

The conflict, as it stands, has the greatest impact on the civilians who are stuck between areas controlled by the Taliban and those controlled by the Afghan Army. “Where there’s conflict or contested areas, life is pretty hellish for people,” McEvoy said. “Because you sit in your village or your farm and one day the army walks up and they tell you ‘why are you supporting the Taliban?’ As soon as they leave, the Taliban come straight back and beat the hell out of you or intimidate you and say ‘why are you colluding with the army?’”

In reality, he said, the army really can’t offer much to the local population in these areas. “They’re not building roads, there’s no schools, no facilities, and the government isn’t really interested in some farmer” in Helmand Province.

Visit the Tell Spring Not to Come website for more information on the film and upcoming screenings.

In what was only meant to be a three month trip, Emma Sky travelled to Iraq in 2003 having volunteered to help rebuild the country immediately after the invasion and overthrow of Saddam Hussein. She soon found herself as a political advisor to the US military and three months turned into a decade.

Over her time in Iraq she witnessed the American efforts to transform the country, the insurgencies and slide into civil war, the planning and implementation of the surge, the subsequent drawdown of US troops, and finally the takeover of a third of the country by the Islamic State.

Sky will be joining us in conversation with The Guardian‘s Middle East editor, Ian Black to share her unique insight into the US military, and the complexities, diversity and evolution of Iraqi society as documented in her new book The Unraveling: High Hopes and Missed Opportunities in Iraq.

Emma Sky is a Senior Fellow at Yale University’s Jackson Institute. She worked in the Middle East for twenty years and was made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire for services in Iraq.

PLEASE NOTE THIS EVENT WILL BE FILMED AND STREAMED LIVE ON OUR YOUTUBE CHANNEL

Days after the September 11 attacks, a CIA Predator in Afghanistan executed the world’s first lethal drone strike. The technology used had been nurtured and developed by the agency for almost a decade, with the aim to monitor targets and take lethal action instantly.

Since then, remotely-piloted aircraft have played a critical role in America’s global counterterrorism operations and have been deployed in conflicts in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya. They are also used in a secret war, a war that the American government insists is legal, in which drones scour the skies of Yemen, Pakistan and Somalia in search of militant and terrorist targets.

The CIA claims that its armed drones are ‘the most precise weapon ever invented,’ but what is the true cost? In a new book, Sudden Justice, investigative journalist Chris Woods explores the secretive history of the United States’ use of armed drones. He will be joining us to explore that history and the key role they play on today’s battlefields and in covert targeted killings.

Chris Woods is a widely-published investigative journalist who specialises in conflict and national security issues. A former senior BBC Panorama producer, he has authored some of the key investigations into covert US drone strikes and their true effects. He was recently awarded the Martha Gellhorn Journalism Prize for his work.

Chaired by Mark Urban, diplomatic and defence editor for BBC Two’s Newsnight. He is the author of several books including Big Boys’ Rules: The SAS and the Secret Struggle Against the IRA, The Tank War and Task Force Black: The explosive true story of the SAS and the secret war in Iraq.

On 25 February, a panel of experts convened at the Frontline Club for a discussion on the war in Afghanistan and its ongoing legacy. Chaired by BBC Afghanistan correspondent, David Loyn, the debate spanned the period from 11 September 2001 to the present day.

L-R: Mike Martin, Jawed Nader, David Loyn, Major General Jonathan Shaw and Jack Fairweather

Jawed Nader, director of the British and Irish Agencies Afghanistan Group (BAAG) who has worked with both the Afghan Government and Afghan civil society, began by commenting on his experience of foreign military intervention post 9/11. He said, “At the beginning we didn’t know what to make of it. We were upset that all these people were being killed, but then we also thought maybe Afghanistan is becoming important for the international community.”

Loyn asked Nader whether he thought war in Afghanistan was unavoidable. He responded, “I think it was inevitable, and in some ways we really wanted that war to take place. Afghanistan was in war for many years before that and we thought there would be no end to it, and then now a superpower was coming and we thought it would be a decisive war.”

On the subject of public support of the intervention, Loyn provided the audience with an American poll figure which conveyed the staggering shift in opinion. “At the time, 93% [of Americans] were in favour of the action, and last month for the first time Gallup recorded negative support for the war in Afghanistan.”  

Jack Fairweather, former Baghdad and Gulf correspondent for the Daily Telegraph and currently fellow of the Centre for Middle Eastern Studies at Harvard University, commented on US strategy in the region. “They [the US] took a very stripped down view of what should be done. ‘Light footprint’ was the sort of catchphrase that was doing the rounds.”

The issue of aid was also discussed in depth, as multiple aid agencies flooded Afghanistan following the outbreak of war. Nader commented that “the aid agencies wanted to do good,” but also recognised that “there was an issue that the Taliban or the ordinary people will not be able to identify who were military personnel aids and who were aid agencies… The other issue was a lot of wastage of aid.”

Major General Jonathan Shaw, recently retired from the British Army after 32 years commanding operations in Iraq, Afghanistan and the Balkans, questioned “did we understand Afghanistan? The real problem is that we didn’t…the ahistorical nature of our approach was just remarkable.”

“I think we went into Afghanistan and Iraq in denial of the lessons of history, launching ourselves on an American crusade.”

Helmand was discussed in great detail, and was described as a “historical accident” by Lyon. “What the British decided to do was put in huge amounts of soldiers and very little aid and wondered why it upset the locals,” added Shaw.

“Prediction about Afghanistan is very difficult, especially if it’s about the future”. Jawed Nader at @frontlineclub

— Chris King (@DocChrisKing) February 25, 2015

Former British Army Office and pushtu-speaker Mike Martin, who served and undertook extensive research in Helmand during the war, commented on the damage inflicted in the province by UK and US military forces.

“Helmand seems to be a microcosm or a slightly extreme version of what happened elsewhere in Afghanistan…. We completely misunderstood what was going on… In Helmand what you saw was a civil war, it had nothing to do with the Taliban or the government. All of the Helmandis understood that we understood the conflict as a dichotomous good/bad government/Taliban…

“We made it worse: rather than clamping down on the violence we actually made it more violent.”

Shaw spoke on the relationship between the armed forces and Whitehall. “The problem is connecting the military instrument to the political objectives. The military were the wrong tool for the job… The military should have been support of the political plan.”

Nader then moved the discussion onto the West’s tendency to misinterpret the needs of Afghanistan.

“We compare Afghanistan with high standards, of European standards I believe, whereas Afghanistan should be compared with its regional countries,” he said.

Nader closed the debate with a hopeful view of the future of Afghanistan.”Today Afghanistan has changed in three main ways. One, Afghanistan is a better place to live, Second, Afghanistan is more diverse…And third, Afghanistan is more self aware, more critical.

“All of these positive changes would not have happened had you not gone to Afghanistan to topple a very draconian regime, the Taliban.”

Listen and watch back below:

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