Ten years later, despite numerous obstacles (the book’s release was stopped by authorities in 2008 and again in 2016), Malik returns to this extraordinary tale. He asks where we can place our trust – in reams of evidence, in a government we believe is on our side, in a terrorist who swears he’s changed, in a friend who has no one else to turn to. Malik explores the uncomfortable questions about why he, as well as the wider media and the nation, surrendered to fear so easily. And he reveals how the age of terror laid the groundwork for an era of fake news and demagogues.

Malik will be joined in conversation with James Brabazon, an award-winning journalist, filmmaker and author of the critically acclaimed memoir My Friend the Mercenary.

‘Gripping and disquieting, this true story of homegrown terrorism and shifting allegiances is as thrilling as any spy novel. I devoured it in a single sitting.’ CAL FLYN

‘This book has literally kept me up at night way past bedtime… so riveting.’ KATE KILALEA

Speakers

James Brabazon is an award-winning frontline journalist and documentary filmmaker. Based in London, he has travelled in over seventy countries, investigating, filming and directing in the world’s most hostile environments. His awards include the Rory Peck Trust International Impact Award, the Rory Peck Freelancer’s choice Award, the IDA Courage Under Fire Award and the FPA’s TV News Story of the Year. He has made over forty films broadcast by the BBC, Channel 4, HBO, CNN and the Discovery Channel. He lectures on the ethics and practicalities of reporting from war zones and his reportage has been published in the Observer and the Guardian. He is the author of the critically acclaimed memoir My Friend the Mercenary. He released his first novel, The Break Line, last year.

Shiv Malik is a former investigative journalist who – alongside reporting from Afghanistan and Pakistan – worked for the Guardian for five years breaking exclusive front page stories on everything from UK austerity to secret ISIS documents. He is the co-author of the 2010 cult economics book Jilted Generation and co-founder of a think-tank, the Intergenerational Foundation. He now contributes to the open source, Smart City technology project Streamr and is a regular panelist on BBC Radio 4’s The Moral Maze.

As early as Trump’s foreign policy overtures in 2017, then National Security Adviser Michael Flynn led a faction in support of listing the Brotherhood as foreign terrorist organisation by the State Department and the U.S. Treasury. Following his sacking and other legal setbacks, the initial proposal fell by the wayside, as more pragmatic voices prevailed in the executive branch. 

When an emboldened General Abdel-fattah Sisi visited the White House in April, he found more sympathetic ears to bend. Cue John Bolton, Trump’s fourth adviser on National Security – and a President plea bargaining for Egyptian support in his plans for peace between Israel and Palestine. For Sisi, the designation would represent another nail in the coffin of his political opponents, Egypt’s Brotherhood Islamists. 

If the U.S. goes ahead, the impact could be huge. Economic and travel sanctions would follow for entities and individuals even loosely based with the multi-faceted organisation. Strategic allies in the region that share legislative and ideological ties with the Muslim Brotherhood – such as Tunisia and Turkey – would be affected and angered by the move. What would be the impact on now dormant Brotherhood members in Egypt? Would a failed designation embolden or revitalise Brotherhood-affiliated political forces throughout the Middle East and North Africa?

Chair

Azadeh Moaveni is a former Middle East correspondent for Time Magazine, based in Cairo and Tehran, and has written three books on Iran. She is the author of the forthcoming Guest House for Young Widows, about the women of ISIS, and now does gender and conflict analysis for the International Crisis Group.

Speakers

David D. Kirkpatrick is an international correspondent based in the London bureau of the New York Times. From the beginning of 2011 through the end of 2015 he was the Cairo bureau chief. In 2018, David’s book Into the Hands of the Soldiers: Freedom and Chaos in Egypt and the Middle East was received to international acclaim.

Madawi Al-Rasheed is Visiting Professor at the Middle East Centre, London School of Economics. Previously she was Professor of Social Anthropology at King’s College, London and Visiting Research Professor at the Middle East Institute, National University of Singapore. Her research focuses on history, society, religion and politics in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf, Middle Eastern Christian minorities in Britain, Arab migration, Islamist movements, state and gender relations, and Islamic modernism. You can read about her publications here.

Mina Thabet is an Egyptian researcher, activist and a human rights defender who is based in London since 2017. Currently, he works as the head of Policy Unite at the Egyptian Commission for Rights and Freedoms (ECRF), an Egyptian award-winning mainstream human rights NGO. His work focuses on freedom of religion and belief, discrimination and sectarian violence against minorities in Egypt. Also, he co-founded two of Egypt’s most prominent youth movements that promoted the rights of religious and ethnic minorities in post-Mubarak era, Maspero Youth Union (MYU) and the Egyptian Coalition for Minorities (ECM).

Photograph courtesy of Wikimedia Commons. 

Terrorism and Beyond is a great event to discuss this international phenomenon. Distinguished speakers will talk about the countries which fund terrorism. In addition, the role of laws, security and intelligence to fight terrorism will be tackled. The role of media and non-state actors, such as mosques, schools, community leaders to eliminate this disease will be analysed.

Book here for this free event.

Speakers

Dr. Lina Khatib

Head of the Middle East and North Africa Programme at Chatham House. She was formerly director of the Carnegie Middle East Center in Beirut and co-founding Head of the Program on Arab Reform and Democracy at Stanford University’s Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law. Her research focuses on the international relations of the Middle East, Islamist groups and security, political transitions and foreign policy, with special attention to the Syrian conflict.

Michael Binyon

An English journalist and eminent foreign correspondent, he has been an editorial writer, columnist and foreign correspondent for The Times (of London) since 1971. For 15 years he was based overseas, reporting from Moscow, Washington, Bonn and Brussels, before returning to London to be diplomatic editor in 1991 and becoming the main foreign editorial writer in 2000. he still writes for The Times and other publications, and is a frequent broadcaster for the BBC and French, German, Canadian, Russian and Middle Eastern radio and television. He published “Life in Russia” in 1983, has won two British journalism prizes and was awarded the OBE by the Queen in 2000.

Brigadier Paul Gibson

Paul Gibson has extensive experience in the defense, security and terrorism sectors both from the practitioner’s perspective and at the highest strategic level including policy-making
within government and the private sector. His military career culminated as Director Counter Terrorism and UK operations, where he was responsible for global threat evaluation and UK
contingency operations and crisis management. He enjoyed a distinguished military career, including command of an armored brigade in Iraq. He was awarded the Distinguished
Service Order (DSO) whilst in command of an airborne battalion and an MBE for his work on counter terrorism.

Moderator

Dr. Said Shehata

Expert in Islamic movements and counter -terrorism Education: undergraduate in Politics and PhD in Politics from the University of London professor of Middle East politics and International Relations at the London Metropolitan University Lectured at LSE, SOAS, Edinburgh, Durham, Westminister universities on the issue of Islamists and their role in politics

Join us for a screening of The Ransom followed by a Q&A with film director Rémi Lainé in conversation with former chief foreign correspondent for The Sunday Telegraph Colin Freeman.

The Ransom dives into the secret system of Kidnap & Ransom, designed by major insurance companies in response to the 30,000 kidnappings committed every year around the world. International insurance companies have created kidnap & ransom, ultra-confidential contracts that are experiencing an unprecedented boom. Following a pending case in Venezuela, The Ransom, filmed in Africa, Europe and the USA, features insurers, negotiators and ex-hostages who speak out for the first time.

With exclusive access to leading hostage recovery agents, The Ransom reveals the cat and mouse games employed to bring a hostage out alive.

By following a few central characters in this interconnected world – often expressing themselves for the first time – The Ransom questions the price of one man’s life and reveals the impact of this vast global organisation on countries with a heightened risk of kidnapping such as Venezuela or Somalia. By emphasising prevention and increasing protection devices, aren’t we just increasing the vulnerability of those who don’t have the means to protect themselves?

“and the price of a man’s life has been determined by the price of things” (Saint-Just)

This event is part of the Brunel University London ‘Knowing Our Rights’ research project.

Chair – Roy Greenslade

Roy Greenslade is one of Britain’s foremost media teachers. He is a leading commentator and columnist on the media, and currently blogs for The Guardian. As a journalist he rose to the highest levels of management in a career taking in The Sun, the Sunday Times, and culminating in the editorship of the Daily Mirror.

Speakers

Professor Anthony Glees – Director at the Centre for Security and Intelligence Studies, University of Buckingham.

Anthony Glees is a Professor of Politics at the University of Buckingham and directs its Centre for Security and Intelligence Studies. He has a specialist concern with Security and Intelligence Issues and has written and lectured on a range of these issues, from the British Intelligence, the Stasi, to terrorism and counter-terrorism. He is a member of the international advisory boards of the Centre of Policing, Intelligence and Counter-Terrorism at Macquarie University, Australia the Asia-Pacific Foundation in London, the Research Institute for European and American Studies in Athens, Greece and the Oxford Intelligence Group. He is a member of the Editorial Board of Intelligence and National Security and The Journal for Policing, Intelligence and Counter-Terrorism and the Advisory Board of The Journal of Intelligence Ethics.

Pat Magee – a former IRA member.

Pat Magee was jailed for his part in the 1984 bombing of the Grand Hotel, Brighton, and released in 1999 under the Good Friday Agreement.

Professor Will Self –  Writer.  Brunel University London.

Will Self is the author of nine novels, six collections of short stories, three novellas and six non-fiction works; he is a prolific journalist and a frequent broadcaster. His fiction has won various awards – as has his journalism. His 2002 novel Dorian, an Imitation was longlisted for the Booker Prize, and his novel Umbrella was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize. His fiction has been translated into over 22 languages, and he contributes to publications in Europe and the US as well as the UK.

Tasnime Akunjee – Lawyer

THE EXILE tells the extraordinary story of the almost ten years that Osama Bin Laden evaded intelligence services and special forces units, drones and hunter killer squads. Through the eyes of those who witnessed it, Scott-Clark and Levy offer an insider’s account from bin Laden’s four wives and children, his deputies and military strategists, his spiritual advisor, the CIA, Pakistan’s ISI, and many others who have never before told their stories.

Having gained unique access to bin Laden’s inner circle, Scott-Clark and Levy, recount the flight of Al Qaeda’s forces and bin Laden’s innocent family members, the gradual formation of ISIS by bin Laden’s lieutenants, and bin Laden’s rising paranoia and eroding control over his organisation. They also reveal that the Bush White House knew the whereabouts of bin Laden’s family and Al Qaeda’s military and religious leaders, but rejected opportunities to capture them, pursuing war in the Persian Gulf instead, and offer insights into how Al Qaeda will attempt to regenerate itself in the coming years.

The sporadic release of documents by the Defence Department in recent years only represented about 1 percent of the million-plus document trove recovered in Abbottabad. “We need more detail and not less. We require more nuance and understanding if we are to ever tamp down a bloody conflict that threatens the globe,” write Scott-Clark and Levy, “And it is from this place— a desire for a contemporary, complex, untidy, knotted, verbal history, where no one is regular or consistent, and where allies are murderously betraying their friends, in which good men make poor choices, and switch sides, and wives become double agents—that this book begins.” While we think we know what happened in Abbottabad on May 2, 2011, we know little about the wilderness years that led to that shocking event.

Chair- Owen-Bennett Jones

Owen Bennett-Jones is a journalist for the BBC and one of the hosts of Newshour on the BBC World Service. He has reported from over 60 countries, including Pakistan. In this time he gained unprecedented access to interview members of Al Qaeda. In 2008 Bennett-Jones won the Sony journalist of the year award and in 2009 the Commonwealth journalist of the year. He is the author of ‘Pakistan: Eye of the Storm’ (2010) and a contributor to the Lonely Planet’s ‘Pakistan and the Karakoram Highway’. Bennett-Jones is a regular contributor to the Financial Times, the Guardian and the London Review of Books.

Speakers

CATHY SCOTT-CLARK

Is an award-winning journalist, author and film-maker, reporting over the past twenty five years for the Sunday Times, Guardian, BBC and Channel 4 from places as varied as Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Bosnia, Rwanda, Serbia, Russia,, China, Bangladesh, Burma, Vietnam, Thailand, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Afghanistan and Iran.

ADRIAN LEVY

Is an internationally renowned and award-winning investigative journalist who worked as a staff writer and foreign correspondent for the Sunday Times for seven years before joining the Guardian as senior correspondent. He has reported from South Asia for more than a decade, and now lives in London.

President Erdogan’s campaign has been driven by anti-European rhetoric and led to stand-offs with Germany, The Netherlands and others. Declining relations between Turkey and the EU raise questions about the stability of Turkish economy, which is largely dependent on trade relations with the EU, and how Turkey will cope with the continuing strains of war, terrorist insurgencies, and the refugee crisis.

Our panel will reflect on President Erdogan’s fraught relationship with the EU in the context of the country’s political future after the April referendum.

Speakers (Full panel announced soon)

Alexander Christie-Miller is a freelance journalist and Turkey correspondent for Newsweek, The Times, and the Christian Science Monitor. He has lived and worked in Istanbul for the past four years.

Elif Shafak is an award-winning novelist and the most widely read female writer in Turkey. She is also a political commentator and an inspirational public speaker. She writes in both Turkish and English, and has published 15 books, 10 of which are novels, including the bestselling The Bastard of Istanbul, The Forty Rules of Love and her most recent, Three Daughters of Eve.

Andrew Gardner has worked on human rights issues in Turkey for over ten years. Currently he is Researcher on Turkey for Amnesty International. Since joining the organization he has researched and written on issues including freedom of expression and assembly, torture, impunity for human rights abuses and refugee rights. He lives in Istanbul.

Drone pilots Lisa, Heather and Daniel reveal how drone warfare, presented as efficacious and selective, is much more liable to error than US officials are ready to admit. The “safe distance” at which it is conducted has very real and damaging effects both for civilians and drone operators.

The primordial act of killing is dehumanized and sanitized, and leaves Heather with post traumatic stress disorders, Daniel with suicidal thoughts and a looming charge for espionage, and compels Lisa to travel to Kabul to seek pardon from the communities she contributed to grief.

As shown in the Ed Snowden case, the US government is quick to punish dissenters: a different war on terror is waged on whistleblowers breaching the secrecy of US military and speaking out against lies and abuses relating to the drone war.

In the discussion that followed, director Sonia Kennebeck highlighted how whistleblowing has become increasingly dangerous and all the more important to investigative journalism in today’s information society. She highlighted how the Intelligence Support Activity, a surveillance system classified as a weapon in itself, is able to watch everyone everywhere without us even knowing.

British barrister and former intelligence official Frank Ledwidge explains that humanitarian law is not fit deal with the relatively unrestricted warfare of drones, and the issue is likely to aggravate as more countries (Russia, Iran, Hezbollah and increasingly China) develop drone capabilities.

Findings by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism seem to corroborate the argument that drone warfare emboldens decision makers and hide the scale of harm away from public scrutiny: reporter Jack Serle logged US air strikes on Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen and Afghanistan demonstrating much higher casualties compared to US official figures.

Drones have numerous civilian applications. One of them, filming, was skilfully used by Kenneback to demonstrate just how intrusive the National Bird’s “unblinking stare” is.

But like any new technology it demands open societal debate. The harmful consequences of secrecy and censorship are boldly portrayed by Kennebeck, whose documentary powerfully  advocates for more transparency both at home and abroad.

The changing nature of conflict in the 21st century now requires a new toolbox. Are we using old methods for new problems in an age of irregular war? How can discourse surrounding international relations and conflict resolution respond to global terrorist movements and the permuting role of technology in warfare?

By exploring the timely question of intervention versus non-intervention, and examining the changing nature of warfare and technology, this discussion presents a comprehensive overview of new thinking on international diplomacy and the complexities of peace-making in the age of ‘irregular war’.

Chaired by Jenny Kleeman, British documentary film-maker and journalist who is best known for her work on Channel 4’s foreign affairs series Unreported World.

Speakers:

Paul Rogers is professor in the department of peace studies at Bradford University, northern England. He is openDemocracy’s international security editor, and has been writing a weekly column on global security since 28 September 2001; he also writes a monthly briefing for the Oxford Research Group. His latest book is Irregular War: ISIS and the New Threat from the Margins

Gabrielle Rifkind is the Director of the Oxford Process at Oxford Research Group, which leads on preventive diplomacy work and high-level mediation. She is a group analyst and specialist in conflict resolution. She combines in-depth political and psychological expertise with many years’ experience in promoting serious analysis and dialogue. As a political entrepreneur, Gabrielle has a deep understanding of human behaviour and motivation. She is co-author with Gianni Picco (former UN Under-Secretary-General and high-level Middle East negotiator) of “Fog of Peace: How to Prevent War”, an in-depth analysis of why conflict prevention requires a new approach.

Julian E. Barnes covers terrorism, NATO and security issues from the Wall Street Journal’s Brussels Bureau, which he joined in 2015. Previously he spent five years covering the Pentagon and national security issues from The Wall Street Journal’s Washington bureau. Before joining the Journal in 2010, Mr. Barnes spent nearly a decade reporting on U.S. foreign policy and the military, including frequent reporting trips to Iraq and Afghanistan, for the Los Angeles Times and U.S. News and World Report. A graduate of Harvard University, He has also worked for the New York Times and the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.

Julia Ebner is a Policy Analyst at Quilliam. Her research focuses on EU terrorism prevention initiatives and counter-extremism policies in the UK, France and Germany. She co-authored “The EU and Terrorism: Is Britain Safer In or Out?” and contributed extensively to the EU-funded TERRA policy advice report as well as research projects for FATE (Families Against Terrorism and Extremism) and the Kofi Annan Foundation. Julia has given evidence to parliamentary working groups, spoken at international conferences and in Parliament, held workshops in schools and universities, written for The Guardian, The Independent and Left Foot Forward and given live TV and radio interviews on BBC World News, CNN International, France24, BBC Radio, LBC and others.

Music is the beating heart of Malian culture. But when Islamic extremists took control of northern Mali in 2012, they enforced one of the harshest interpretations of sharia law in history and, crucially for Mali, they banned all forms of music. Radio stations were destroyed, instruments burned and Mali’s musicians faced torture, even death.

Overnight, Mali’s revered musicians were forced into hiding or exile – where most remain even now. But rather than lay down their instruments, the musicians are fighting back, standing up for their cultural heritage and identity. Through everything, they have used music as their weapon against the ongoing violence that has left Mali ravaged.

‘Disco’ is a renowned singer, UN-recognised humanitarian and outspoken activist. She organises gigs from her refugee camp base in Burkina Faso and is a constant support for musicians in exile, who look to her to eventually lead them home.

Known as the “Nightingale of the North” and speaking all seven languages of the country, Khaira’s home was raided by jihadists and her materials, records and instruments destroyed. Yet she remains firm in her criticism of their actions despite threats to her life. She campaigns tirelessly for elections and is organising the first public concert in Timbuktu since the conflict to prove that musicians will not be silenced. But the rise of ISIS has given Mali’s extremists new life, and realising Khaira’s dream is risky for everyone.

With a specially commissioned soundtrack from Mali’s most exciting artists and a score written by the Yeah Yeah Yeah’s Nick Zinner, They Will Have To Kill Us First leaps headfirst into a tale of courage in the face of conflict.

Directed by: Johanna Schwartz
Country: United Kingdom
Year: 2015
Runtime: 105′