The ‘ante-chamber of terror’ as the French security service is said to have dubbed the Tablighi Jamaat, or an other-worldly group of Muslims dedicated to piety and preaching? A movement of separatist, supremacist misogynists bent on the Islamisation of Europe, or a misunderstood part of Britain’s multicultural mosaic?

This little-known Muslim association whose name means ‘the preaching group’ has raised hundreds of thousands of pounds to secure planning permission for its new world centre or markaz in Newham – yet scholars are completely at odds over its purpose and ethos.

This event launches Tablighi Jamaat by Dr Zacharias Pieri – the first of an authoritative new series Handy Books for Journalists on Religion in World Affairs published by Lapido Media.

With:

Ziauddin Sardar, prolific writer, broadcaster and scholar of different Islams who wrote the three-part documentary Life of Mohammed broadcast in 2011 by BBC2. He is a former adviser to Anwar Ibrahim, leader of the Malaysian opposition; founding Commissioner of the Equality and Human Rights Commission and a regular contributor to the nation’s better newspapers, including the New Statesman. Author of Balti Britain and Desperately Seeking Paradise in which he describes his own encounter with the TJ, he is the founding editor of the ground-breaking quarterly Critical Muslim (Hurst) and Chair of the Muslim Institute.

Dan Damon, former war correspondent who covered the Middle East and Bosnia with his camerawoman wife, Sian, is founder of News Network International and Sony Gold Award-winning presenter of the BBC World Service’s daily news magazine, World Update.

Jeremy Hunter, renowned photojournalist who specialises in the religious festivals of remote societies and is the only photographer to get official permission to photograph the Tablighi Jamaat’s little-known ‘gathering’ in Bangladesh that attracts more Muslims than the annual pilgrimage to Mecca. Hunter contributes to The Sunday Times, The Telegraph Magazine, The Sunday Telegraph Magazine, The Guardian, Mail on Sunday, Conde Nast Traveller, /i>GEO, Stern, and many travel-related magazines. His reportages have been recognised with two UNESCO awards.

Dr Zacharias Pieri, is a political sociologist with extensive ethnographic research experience of British Muslim communities. Tablighi Jamaat in Britain is based on two years observation of the TJ in Newham. His current research is directed at identity politics and Islam in contemporary societies.

This event marks the fifth anniversary of the international religious literacy charity Lapido Media.

Followed by a Q&A with undercover reporter Hanan Khandagji

BBC Arabic investigation has uncovered cases where children had been seriously injured in Jordan’s private care homes for the mentally disabled. The film also uncovers allegations of sexual abuse at one private care home. Hanan Khandagji is the undercover reporter who produced BBC Arabic’s investigative documentary Jordan’s Secret Shame. The film explores care homes abuse of disable children in Jordan, which received massive media coverage as well as a reaction from the public and the Jordanian government alike.

Following the first broadcast of the investigation a press release was issued on 13 May and on Monday morning, the King of Jordan, Abdullah, has made a surprise visit to some of the home cares in Jordan. He later commissioned an investigation, which includes all care homes for disabled children, elderly homes and nurseries among others. Two weeks later, the investigation committee submitted its final report and found additional evidence of child abuse. Some care homes were announced closed and some others have been given warning notices. Several care workers were referred to court, some were jailed.

Hanan Khandagji holds Palestinian nationality, she was born in 1989 in Saudi Arabia and raised and lives in Jordan. While finalising her BA in Business Administration, Jarash University, she worked with Arab Reporters for Investigative Journalism (ARIJ), BBC Arabic partners in producing the investigative documentary on Jordan. She also works as a volunteer in Al Balad Radio and Amman Net website, in the investigation Affairs Department.

On April 26th, Cambodian anti-logging activist Chut Wutty was killed by military police near one of the protected areas he was monitoring. The shooting was one of the most shocking episodes in the fierce battle to save the country’s forests from destruction by powerful, corrupt elites who have accumulated vast wealth from their plunder while the people remain devastatingly poor.

Wutty worked with many communities who find themselves in the firing line, fighting for their rights and those of the forest. This exclusively commissioned film explains why they stood firm in the face of extreme intimidation and state-sponsored brutality, and why he was willing to pay the ultimate price to protect the forest from the march of the loggers.

A showing of the ten minute film will be followed by interviews with colleagues of Wutty’s about their cause and the threats they face. This will then be followed by a session chaired by Global Witness on the links between natural resources, corruption and conflict in Cambodia and elsewhere internationally.

Chair by Christopher Mitchell, Managing Director of OR Media Ltd and Chair of the Global Witness Trust. He is an award-winning writer, producer and director whose films, mostly on international affairs, have been shown on most of the world’s leading TV networks. He has written for the Sunday Times and Independent on Sunday, and been a visiting lecturer at Oxford University, the Royal College of Art and the National Film School.

With:

Mike Davis, Head of the Conflict Resources Campaign at Global Witness.

Markus Hardtke and Sen Samnang, who have both worked with Wutty to protect Cambodia’s forests and other natural resources from destruction for many years.

It’s one of the most corrupt countries in the world and widely criticised for its human rights record but this year Azerbaijan is hosting Eurovision – one of the most glitzy TV music competitions in the world.

But what do we really know about Azerbaijan? What impact will this glitter invasion have on a country unused to being on the international stage? This oil-rich former Soviet republic bordering Iran, Turkey and Russia is undergoing rapid modernisation, forging strong new ties with Europe while retaining its roots in the East.

As Eurovision prepares to come to town, we find out what makes this country tick – exploring Azerbaijan’s rich cultural heritage through the eyes of our Azeri speaking presenter. From music to food, from the winding streets of the old city to the soaring skyscrapers of the modern town.

It’s a country of contrasts and contradictions.

With Eurovision pointing the international spotlight on Azerbaijan young Azeris are hoping for more freedom of expression and genuine moves to democracy. But how realistic is this?

We talk to the bloggers and flashmobbers at the forefront of calls for change – and we put their concerns to an MP.

We find out why the war with Armenia 20 years ago still casts a long shadow – to the point where Armenia has pulled out of the contest.

We look at the challenges of hosting an event like this and ask Eurovision officials whether it should be held here at all.

Duration: 50′

Girls can live like this until they are young adults, at which moment they are suddenly expected to revert to being girls, put on a dress and a scarf and conform to all the restrictions and rules imposed on Afghan girls. For many young women it’s very hard to adjust to their new lives.

An female Afghan MP spoke out recently about the difficulties facing girls in this situation, even though she herself admitted bringing up one of her daughters as a boy. The practice raises profound questions about why girls are still so undervalued in Afghan society and how difficult it is even for the new Facebook generation of modern young Afghans to challenge traditional prejudices.

Tahir Qadiry‘s film looks at the issue from a number of different perspectives. He spends time with a girl currently growing up as a boy, talks to a young woman who’s still coming to terms with her experience being raised as a boy, seeks the opinion of a mullah and hears from a human rights activist. He doesn’t judge but the viewer is left with the distinct impression that this is no painless solution for families who feel incomplete without a son.

Journalists working in areas of conflict reveal how they get information when traditional techniques are insufficient. The discussion will focus on the interaction between local hires and foreign journalists.

Local journalists are typically less conspicuous and more mobile than their foreign counterparts. They perform a vital service – bringing information from areas that are off-limits to the foreign press. Perhaps most critically for a cash-starved news industry, they are also cheaper to use than Western news gatherers.

But are they cutting corners and breaching ethics? How are the rules of reporting being rewritten by risk?

The event will be led by Richard Pendry of the University of Kent’s Centre for Journalism. While at Frontline News Television, he worked in Chechnya and across the former Soviet Union as well as Afghanistan and the Congo. He will show his film “A Strange Animal”, which focuses on the risks and rewards of adapting traditional models of news gathering. It follows local reporters in Falluja and Baghdad and looks at the phenomenon of “sub-contracting” news gathering, where local reporters pass on stories one to another when conditions are dangerous.

With:

Aamer Ahmed Khan, head of the BBC Urdu Service, has been in journalism for 25 years. He worked for the English daily newspaper The Nation in Lahore, joined the launch team of Pakistan’s first English language weekly The Friday Times as its News Editor and was special correspondent for Pakistan’s premier political magazine The Herald.  He has worked with local people in Pakistan’s Tribal areas to identify the victims of US drone strikes.

Amie Ferris-Rotman, a Reuters correspondent in Kabul. She was previously a reporter in Moscow, working across the former Soviet Union covering pipeline politics, foreign policy and running stringers  reporting on the Islamist insurgency in Russia’s North Caucasus.

Callum Macrae, the producer/director behind Channel 4’s multi-award winning “Sri Lanka’s Killing Fields”. Using mobile phone footage and other video footage from non-professional sources the film revealed the shocking truth behind the final operation against Tamil Tigers and the civilians trapped with them. The film led David Cameron to call on the UN to investigate the war crimes apparently revealed in the film. He has made films for the BBC, Channel 4, Al Jazeera and PBS and has reported and directed from around the world including Iraq, Sudan, Congo, Uganda, Cameroon and Ivory Coast.

Neil Arun, international editor who has produced a range of investigative stories during his time in Iraq, working with a bureau of local journalists. His own reporting from the country has been published by Vanity Fair and the Financial Times Weekend magazine. He also spent five years with the BBC, and has reported from the Balkans, Caucasus and Pakistan.

 

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Murdoch on his knees, MP’s Expenses, Wikileaks, Phone Hacking and Tomlinson; Investigative journalism seems to be going through a purple patch. Is it really alive or is this a false dawn?

Join us to debate and launch the book Investigative Journalism: Dead or Alive?  Edited by John Mair and Richard Keeble published by Abramis on September 20th. Author priced copies will be available on the night.

Chaired by Kevin Marsh, Former Editor BBC Radio Four’s the Today programme;

With:

John Ware, BBC Panorama;

Donal MacIntyre, investigative journalist;

Paul Lewis, special projects editor at the Guardian.

Doing a personal tally while writing “Barrel” he discovered that he’d had about a dozen whisker-width scrapes, most of which might have ended otherwise.  He puts a lot of it down to luck and a peculiar predilection for regarding the most absurdly dangerous situations as comical, especially when it is anything but. It is all nerves, he admits, but goes on to say that a smile and a bit of banter when the chips really are down, sometimes helps.

For all that, he has been “wounded” twice, once, in a frontal attack across trench-lines in Angola and as a result of his own stupidity. What it has done is leave him more than half deaf, which helps when you’re trying to sleep in some Third World environment where an evening’s enjoyment is measured in terms of decibels.

In a more serious vein, Al J. Venter is described by Wikipedia as a war correspondent, documentary filmmaker and author of more than 40 books (45, in fact).  He has covered violence and insurrection just about everywhere. Venter served as African and Middle East correspondent for Jane’s International Defence Review and has reported on a number of Africa’s bloodiest wars including the Nigerian Civil War, the Ugandan conflict, Rhodesia, the Sudan, Angola, the South African Border War, the Congo as well as Portuguese Guinea and Sierra Leone.  In addition he has undertaken three military assignments with Executive Outcomes and a Joint-STAR mission with the United States Air Force over Kosovo.  

This is a rare and unprecedented opportunity to hear Venter speak; expect a searching and revealing evening that will cover blood diamonds, Al-Qaeda and the Islamic quest for nuclear weapons. In conversation with journalist John Coster, Venter will also be talking about his pending new work, ‘Neal Ellis – Helicopter Pilot: Mercenary’ shortly to be published by Casemate.