A panel discussion focused on The Fight Against Daesh made for a timely first First Wednesday of the year at the Frontline Club. The packed event on 6 January was chaired by David Loyn, foreign correspondent for the BBC for over 30 years. The speakers included Richard Spencer, Middle East editor of The Daily and Sunday Telegraph; Shiraz Maher, research fellow at the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation at King’s College; and Robin Yassin-Kassab, journalist and author of The Road From Damascus and most recently co-author with Leila al-Shami of Burning Country: Syrians in Revolution and War. Completing the panel was Azadeh Moaveni, lecturer in journalism at Kingston University and former Middle East correspondent for TIME magazine, and author of Lipstick Jihad and Honeymoon in Tehran.

Fantastic debate @frontlineclub last night about what’s happening with Isis/Daesh…Always better live than on TV! pic.twitter.com/jBMWx6JbmI

— The CollectiveLondon (@Collective_Lon) January 7, 2016

From the outset, the panel approached discussions on Daesh with a thorough evaluation of the developments in Syria and surrounding region. The discussion took a turn away from the media hype surrounding Daesh towards the geo-political realities and factions at play. From Islamist and moderate groups within Syria to Saudi Arabia, Iran, the Western allies and Turkey, few stones were left unturned.

Yassin-Kassab and Spencer affirmed the widely-accepted notion that Daesh was created by the vacuum left after the destruction of Iraq, and directly enabled by Bashar al-Assad’s timely decision to release prominent jihadis from prison. Yassin-Kassab summarised the effects: “He [Assad] needed to terrify the West and he has been very successful at that. Here we are tonight discussing what to do about the enemy Daesh and not what to do about the man who has killed 95% of the people in Syria over the last 5 years: Bashar al-Assad.”

Jabhat al-Nusra, the Al-Qaeda affiliate operating in Syria, was discussed at some length. The panelists agreed that, unlike Daesh, Jabhat al-Nusra’s more tolerant and classical grassroots approach would remain deeply embedded in Syrian society in the longterm.  It was also agreed that Al-Qaeda more generally has had to reassess its tactical boundaries in order to distance itself from the relentless barbarianism of Daesh.

Maher said: “Al-Qaeda over the last 15 years has been on an incredibly steep learning curve. They have learnt far more about warfare, insurgency and human terrains than we have and that’s why, to put it very bluntly, they are winning.”

Yassin-Kassab used Russia’s ongoing bombardment in Syria – supposedly targeting Daesh – to argue that outside players are worsening the situation. He said: “80% of Russian strikes have fallen on the people that drove IS out of their areas.”

Iran was also scrutinised for its relentless military support of Assad. However, when asked by Loyn if there were circumstances under which Iran would “dump” its long term alley Assad, Moaveni said: “Absolutely, I think Iran would dump Assad in a moment if it comes to that… For them, it’s important to keep some key supply routes open to some political faction that is friendly to Tehran.”

When Spencer disagreed with Moaveni – suggesting instead that Iran was more dependent on Assad than Russia was – Moaveni pointed to the double standards of Western relations with Saudi and Iran. She said:
“It’s only in the last year or two that things are shifting a bit, that you have open discussions in editorial pages about the reliability of Saudi as an ally and if it makes sense to keep Iran permanently at a distance.”

The recent decision by the UK government to bomb Syria decidedly split the panel. Maher supported the notion and warned of the danger of outsourcing the UK’s security program in not acting militarily. He said: “Daesh is a counterterrorism problem as far as we are concerned; Syria is a much bigger problem which we are not going to fix.”

L-r: Azadeh Moaveni, Shiraz Maher, David Loyn, Robin Yassin-Kassab and Richard Spencer

Moaveni, Spencer and Yassin-Kassab expressed their skepticism of how bombing Daesh could be effective in the long term. Spencer said: “Bombing IS without a strategy for the whole Middle East is a disaster… If the Western allies – Britain, France, America – don’t stick together and form common policies then western policy will fall apart.”

Yassin-Kassab criticised the dismissive approach the West maintains towards the Southern Front, the Syrian opposition unaffiliated with Islamic groups. He said: “They [Southern Front] are dependent on aid from a military operations room in Jordan, and the West, the Americans, keep telling the Jordanians and Saudis not to allow them the anti-tank and particularly anti-aircraft weapons that they need now.”

One audience member asked the panel what they predicted for the region in the future. The panelists agreed that Assad would remain in some shape or form, but Moaveni predicted a “vast kingdom emerging” in the Persian Gulf, united under a Sunni leadership. Maher, on the other hand, saw a “federalised system of government” in the Levant. Yassin-Kassab preferred not to speculate, saying: “you can’t tell what direction we are going as we are going into so many directions at once.”

There’s no getting round it. Female journalists face exceptional risks when reporting events across the world. Especially as freelancers undertaking assignments alone, women must factor the dangers of gender and sexual violence into their assessments of hostile environments.

L-r: Richard Spencer, Alison Baskerville, Elisa Lees Munoz, Nadine Marroushi and Caroline Neil

This was the resounding conclusion of News Reporting and Navigating Risk: Is Gender a Factor? – a panel discussion at the Frontline Club on Tuesday 23 June organised in partnership with the International Women’s Media Foundation (IWMF) and the Frontline Freelance Register (FFR).

IWMF executive director and panel chair Elisa Lees Munoz opened the debate by presenting the results of the foundation’s recent survey of 1000 female journalists, of whom 20% had experienced some form of gender-based violence while on assignment.

“We were pretty horrified by that number,” said Lees Munoz. “But we were also pretty distressed by the fact that the majority of the perpetrators weren’t strangers… but were their colleagues, supervisors, fixers or translators.”

These risks can be difficult to mitigate against, said Caroline Neil, director of hostile environment training providers RPS Partnership.

“The risks that female media workers face are really intangible. The interpersonal relationship between you and your interpreter, fixer or male colleague who might have misconstrued the situation,” said Neil.

“It’s very difficult to mitigate those types of risks because it’s very much around your interpersonal skills, experience and whether you are susceptible.”

But the dangers to women journalists are by no means purely physical, said journalist Nadine Marroushi, who personally suffered post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) after being assaulted by a crowd while reporting on protests in Egypt’s Tahrir Square.

Psychological trauma resulting from sexual assault in the field continues to affect women long after the physical scars have healed. Yet PTSD can affect all journalists, regardless of gender, and is an issue the industry needs to urgently address, she added.

“It’s really important for journalists to acknowledge how things are affecting them and to create some kind of space where they can talk about those things,” said Marroushi.

That space just doesn’t exist at the moment, especially for local journalists who aren’t able to get out and get help, said documentary photographer and FFR board member Alison Baskerville.

“We can’t forget about local journalists. It feels like there’s this huge need for us to collaborate with all the knowledge that we have… so that we can educate ourselves and spread that further,” said Baskerville.

L-r: Elisa Lees Munoz, Nadine Marroushi and Caroline Neil

Richard Spencer, Middle East editor at The Telegraph, said that the culture towards mental health within media organisations is developing, with PTSD counselling now on offer for all who work with the paper. But many still fall through the gaps, he said.

“It’s difficult to see who takes responsibility for the longterm mental health of local hires such as translators, who may be working for fifty different places,” he said. “The policy is there, but the gaps for those who fall between them are very large.”

Excellent event @frontlineclub on the risks faced by women reporting in the field #journoselfcare – http://t.co/LucJzEmPCy

— Brian_Condon (@brian_condon) June 23, 2015

Chair Lees Munoz, who is helping to develop a call for international guidelines on hiring freelancers, told the Frontline Club audience that the IWMF is lobbying to include a clause for a no-tolerance policy on gender violence perpetrated by media employees.

She also stressed the need for international databases of trusted fixers and translators, global hostile environment training standards and for increased efforts to reach out to local journalists affected by sexual assault.