Synopsis

Nicaragua’s president Ortega has launched a crackdown on the independent media in a country gripped by civil disruption and economic chaos. Sahar Zand meets the journalists risking a beating or worse to get their stories out and others who have decided the only way to survive is to flee. Producer/Director Roeland Doust’s film takes us from the newsroom of the country’s oldest newspaper, La Prensa, to independent TV studios and a blogger’s home as the journalists decide if their profession is still worth the huge risk to their safety.

You can read the latest Reporters Sans Frontieres reports from Nicaragua here.

Chair

Sue Turton is the current Series Editor for Channel 4’s Unreported World. She moved into documentary production, with films in Afghanistan, the Philippines (award-winning), Indonesia and on the ISIS attacks in Paris, after 28 years on the road as a correspondent. Prior to this she joined Al Jazeera English as Afghanistan Correspondent in 2010 before covering the Arab Uprisings as a roving war correspondent reporting on the Libyan revolution from beginning to end, the Syrian war with missions alongside Al Qaeda affiliate Jabhat al Nusra and embedded with the Peshmerga during Iraq’s battle against ISIS. Sue led a campaign to free her colleagues from an Egyptian prison after she and six other Al Jazeera staff were wrongly convicted of terrorism offences. She is still on the run.

Speakers

Roeland Doust is a freelance documentary director and cameraman. He has made films for all major UK & US broadcasters, recently focussing on more observational films and current affairs. Some of the subjects he has covered include homosexuality in BAME communities, the impact of the US War on Drugs, cousin marriages in Pakistani families and the global rise of online misogyny.

Sahar Zand is a British Iranian journalist and presenter, and an international award winning documentary maker. She joined BBC World News and BBC World Service in 2014, and has made a number of TV, radio and digital pieces from around the world covering a wide range of stories. 

 
On Monday 30 March the Frontline Club hosted a screening of A Quiet Inquisition, followed by an insightful discussion with director Alessandra Zeka. Recently previewed at the London edition of the Human Rights Watch Film Festival, A Quiet Inquisition has been described by the Huffington Post as a film that “every human rights advocate should see.”

A Quiet Inquisition follows the daily life of OBGYN Doctor Carla Cerrato, as she works at a public hospital in Nicaragua and battles the restrictions of a new law which forbids the termination of any pregnancy, even when a woman’s life is at stake. As pregnant women and young girls turn to the hospital for help, Carla and her colleagues are torn between fears of prosecution and their moral duty as doctors to save lives. Illuminating the deadly implications of this law through human stories, the film reveals the reality of an absolute abortion ban against the backdrop of Nicaragua’s complex political, religious and historical identity.

The documentary was inspired by an article in the New York Times that examined the restrictions of El Salvador’s anti abortion laws. “We actually started the film in El Salvador, but when we arrived there people did not want to talk about the issue,” said Zeka.

Along with co-director Holen Sabrina Kahn, Zeka then turned to Nicaragua, where the change in law had just gone into effect and people were more willing to speak. It was there that they met A Quiet Inquisition’s main protagonist, Dr Carla Cerrato, and the story began to take hold.

“Over the period of time, Carla opened up a lot and it was like following the dots for us,” Zeta said.

Really eye opening night @frontlineclub watching The Quiet Inquisition http://t.co/jdix2KdmUZ watch if you can

— Gina (@CuriousGe) March 30, 2015

Zeka discussed her intent to show the “universe of the doctor,” placing the issue of anti-abortion laws in a broader political and socio-economic context. Poverty, lack of education, and teenage pregnancies are prevalent in Nicaragua, an environment that reinforces the struggles faced by Carla in her daily work.

Zeka spoke of how she wanted to underline these issues from the beginning of the film, particularly by focusing on Dr. Cerato’s work with young girls.

“It was pretty disturbing for me,” she said. “That was one of the hardest things for me to deal with whilst making this film: 12-, 13-year-old girls walking out the hospital with 25 year old men. We met 45 year old guys with 13 year old girls.”

Asked by an audience member if she thinks Carla will get in trouble with the authorities for being so frank in her criticism of the new law and her willingness to break it, Zeka said: ‘We’re hoping and praying that she wont… I spent a lot of time with her and sometimes she’s very excited and gung ho about it and sometimes she’s a little bit afraid.”

The film has so far received an overwhelmingly positive response, and the hope is that Dr. Cerato’s story will continue to have a wider impact.

“We would like things to be different, we would like people to have a conversation about it,” said Zeka.

“We will also show the film to medical students, as there are many who don’t know how to make procedures for medical abortions. Even if we can achieve that, to have more students in Nicaragua to be trained for these cases, we have already achieved something.”

Click here to find out more information about A Quiet Inquisition and upcoming screenings.

At a public hospital in Nicaragua, OBGYN Dr Carla Cerrato must choose between following a law that bans all abortions and endangers her patients or taking a risk and providing the care that she knows can save a woman’s life. In 2007, Dr. Cerrato’s daily routine took a detour.

The newly elected government of Daniel Ortega, a former Marxist revolutionary who converted to Catholicism to win votes, overturned a 130-year-old law protecting therapeutic abortion. The new law entirely prohibits abortion, even in cases of rape, incest, or when a woman’s life is at stake.

As Dr Cerrato and her colleagues navigate this dangerous dilemma, the impact of the law reveals the tangible reality of prohibition against the backdrop of a political, religious, and historically complex national identity. In A Quiet Inquisition, the emotional core of the story – the experiences of the young women and girls who are seeking care — illustrates the ethical implications of one doctor’s response.

Directed by Alessandra Zeka and Holen Sabrina Kahn
Duration: 65′
Year: 2015
For enquiries info@ journeyman.tv

"There’s a definite lack of leaders [today]," documentary producer Richard Symons commented to a Frontline Club audience on 8 October.  "Where are they?"

Symons had just screened the third film in his and Joanna Natasegara’s series The Price of Kings, which explores the weight of leadership.  Previous films have focused on Yasser Arafat and Shimon Peres.

One true leader, the latest Price of Kings film suggests, has been Oscar Arias, two-time President of Costa Rica.

In 1987, he famously defied American and Soviet insistence – "an incredible amount of pressure," one aide put it – that Costa Rica pick a side in the Cold War proxy battles that were tearing Central America apart.

"I had to fight Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev," Arias reflects in the film.  "It was not gonna be easy, to say to Goliath, ‘well, here’s David, little David, but we’re gonna fight for our convictions, for our principles, for our ideals."

Peace was Arias’ ideal.  With no military behind him – Costa Rica’s disbanded in 1948 – he nonetheless broke from Washington and Moscow to bring ideologically-opposed Central American leaders to a negotiating table.

"Dial back to 1986," Symons said, "if you looked at those guys and what was going on in their countries, Arias must have been absolutely off his tits to think he could even get them on the phone!"

The Esquipulas Peace Agreement resulted, settling bloody conflicts that raged between Kremlin- and American-backed groups fighting for power over Nicaragua, El Salvador and Guatemala.  His efforts earned him the 1987 Nobel Peace Prize.

"In person, he’s an oddly persuasive man," Natasegara shared.  "He’s not necessarily hugely charismatic, and yet there’s something right about what he says, and you see how he could have convinced them."

In 2006, Arias risked his legacy by serving once more as Costa Rica’s President; the film shows how his dogged support for an unpopular mining project left his reputation among Costa Ricans in tatters. 

Today, he campaigns – so far unsucessfully – for an International Arms Treaty that would halt the flow of weapons from idustrialized nations to the third world.  

"Use the dividends of peace," Arias says simply, "[and] the world would be quite different, it seems to me."

After the screening, an audience member wondered why so many people in the film, even those very close to Arias, did not speak entirely positively about him.  Natasegara answered, 

"Ironically, I think apart from two people in the film […] everybody was very warm about him.  And I think that’s what’s nice […] that they feel so much trust in him that they can speak openly about his flaws […]  So if they speak badly towards him, it’s only because he allows this kind of openness."

The trailer for The Price of Kings:  Oscar Arias can be seen here.

By Nicole Hunt 

The week starts off with a bang as humankind hits a big milestone on Monday – the UN is marking the day as the moment the world’s population surpasses seven billion people.

A deadline set by the Arab League two weeks ago for Syrian President Bashar al Assad to open dialogue with the Syrian opposition council expires. Syria risks expulsion from the regional bloc over concerns at the rising death toll from nine months of action against anti-government protesters, which has already topped 3,000.

With Cannes off-limits to all but world leaders, the traditional anti-G20 rally is being held in Nice on Tuesday. The demonstration kicks off a four-day ‘alternative summit’, with many of the world’s biggest NGOs expected to be in attendance.

The two-day London Conference on Cybersecurity begins in London, with Foreign Secretary William Hague, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales all scheduled to speak.

Turkey hosts the Istanbul Conference for Afghanistan on Wednesday, focusing on security and cooperation in the heart of Asia; Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari and Afghan President Hamid Karzai are among those attending. While the Conference could have been lost in the build up to the G20, Karzai’s expected announcement of the next areas where Afghan security forces will take control from NATO is bound to keep it in the headlines.

Of course the G20 itself kicks off on Thursday, though it wouldn’t be surprising if many of the European leaders involved are quite sick of seeing each other – for some, this will be their third meeting in 12 days.

While the G20 leaders are discussing the world’s financial problems, the European Central Bank’s Governing Council will be holding the first of its two meetings this month. The meeting is the first chaired by former Italian Central Bank Governor Mario Draghi, who replaces Jean-Claude Trichet as ECB President on 1 November.

The Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca begins on Friday. The five-day festival has in recent years attracted nearly two million foreign pilgrims, making it the largest pilgrimage in the world. Muslims who have the means to make the journey are required to do so at least once during their lifetime.

The Mars500 simulated mission to Mars ‘returns’ to Earth at the Institute of Biomedical Problems in Moscow. The crew members have been in an isolation chamber for 17 months, even performing several simulated spacewalks during their journey.

Italy’s Partido Democratico holds a pro-democracy, anti-Berlusconi rally in Rome on Saturday. The opposition party is using the occasion to launch its proposals for the reconstruction of the world’s economy and an alternative to Silvio Berlusconi’s embattled government.

In Cape Town, the Russell Tribunal on Palestine, an international tribunal investigating Israeli complicity in human rights abuses against Palestinians, opens its South African evidence session, with opening remarks from Archbishop Desmond Tutu and an address from Winnie Madikizela-Mandela.

The week closes with two Central American elections. In Guatemala, Otto Perez Molino of the Partido Patriota faces off against Manuel Baldizon of the Libertad Democratica Renovada party in a presidential run-off. Molina won 13 per cent more of the vote in the 11 September first round election.

Meanwhile, in Nicaragua, incumbent President Daniel Ortega is eligible for a second term following an October 2009 decision by the country’s Supreme Court that removed constitutional obstacles that would have prevented him from standing again. Voters also elect members to the country’s parliament.