Defying The Taliban

with Alex Crawford, Martin Bright, Zahra Joya + Zehra Zaidi

13th April 2023, Borough Yards Everyman, London

‘An evening of conversation, inspiration and action’

On Thursday 13th April, we hosted over 100 people at Everyman in Borough Yards, for a film and panel discussion with one of Britain's most respected front-line reporters, Alex Crawford.

First, we watched ‘Women at War: Afghanistan’, a Sky News documentary reporting from within one of the most oppressive regimes in the world. In this film, our audience saw Alex meeting the underground resistance in Afghanistan who work every day to fight for human rights. We saw on screen how women, young and old, are risking arrest, torture and imprisonment every day in their pursuit of education.

After this incredibly moving film screening, we heard from an Afghan woman who has been forced to flee her homeland, and now fights the battle for women’s rights from the UK. Her testimony was inspiring and revealing, helping our audience understand how dire the situation is, and how dangerous this work can be.
For the second part of the event, Tina Kothari welcomed the expert panel to tell us more about the reality of life in Afghanistan, and what can be done to fight for women’s rights from afar.

The Panel

Moderator: Martin Bright (Index on Censorship)

Alex Crawford (Sky News)

Zehra Zaidi (Action for Afghanistan)

Zahra Joya (TIME Woman of the Year, Rukshana Media)

Together, we heard what it’s really like to work and live under Taliban rule, and how we can all play a part in supporting these brave journalists and activists. Our audience had a chance to put their own questions to the panel, and it certainly felt like we could fill another hour if we had the chance - alas, perhaps we’ll just have to host more AnotherWay Now events on this topic.

We wrapped up the formal part of the event in our usual way - with a list of specific Calls To Action that all audience members can choose to engage with, to start making their own waves in this fight for human rights.

After the main event

As we filed out of the screening room, the panel and audience reconvened in the Everyman lounge to continue the conversation. AnotherWay Now supplied authentic snacks cooked by refugee chefs from Syrian Sunflower, and the Everyman team kindly hosted us for the rest of the evening.
There were new connections being made throughout the evening, and - without saying too much - we can’t wait for the projects that emerge from this casual after-event mingle.

Meet the Panelist : Alex Crawford

Alex is Special correspondent, and during her 30-year career has been arrested, detained, abducted, interrogated and faced live bullets, tear-gas, IEDs, mortar and artillery shellings.

Based in Istanbul, she reports on major stories around the world. Formerly based in Dubai, Delhi and Johannesburg, Alex has covered events in Africa, South Asia, the Gulf and the Middle East including covering the Arab Spring uprisings in Tunisia, Egypt, Bahrain, Libya and Syria.

Alex was the first correspondent to independently access Myanmar's Rakhine State and get first-hand evidence of what the UN called ‘ethnic cleansing' of the Rohingya. This eye-witness reporting is now being used as part of an International Criminal Case currently being processed.

She was the first reporter to broadcast live from Tripoli's Green Square as rebel forces took over the Libyan capital.

Over her career Alex has earned numerous honours and accolades and is the only journalist to have won the Royal Television Society's Journalist of the Year an unprecedented five times.

She has won four BAFTAs and has had a further six nominations. The wins were for reporting on the spread of Ebola, obtaining rare access to the war-ravaged Syrian city of Idlib, the 2020 Hong Kong protests and exposing the persecution of Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar.

Alex has won three International Emmy Awards. She was part of the Sky News team recognised for investigating the role of the Taliban in Pakistan and received further awards for reporting on the perilous sea crossings made by migrants from Turkey to Greece and her coverage of Rohingya claims of Genocide. She was also nominated for gaining exclusive access to the Taliban in Afghanistan.

In December 2010, she was named Woman Journalist of the Year by Women in Film and Television for her work in Afghanistan, and the following year became the only woman to win a second accolade from the Women in Film and Television when she was awarded Best Achievement in 2011 for her reporting from Tripoli.

In June 2014, she won a fifth Golden Nymph award, the highest accolade from the Monte Carlo Film Festival for her coverage of the conflict in the Central African Republic. Previous wins included her reporting the year before of the South African Marikana Mines Massacre, the Fall of Tripoli; Battle for Zawiyah and the Mumbai Terror attacks.

She has also won the Bayeux War Correspondents Award, James Cameron Memorial Award for what was described as her ‘moral integrity’, the inaugural Woman of the Year at the British Journalism Awards in 2022 for her coverage of the Ukraine war as well as womens’ rights in the Taliban’s Afghanistan - and she was made 2023 Journalist of the Year at the Society of Editors’ Media Freedom Awards for her reporting from Ukraine.

Meet the Moderator : Martin Bright

Martin has worked for over 20 years in journalism on national newspapers and magazines before setting up a youth employment charity, The Creative Society, in 2009. He is currently Editor-at-Large for the free-expression magazine Index on Censorship. He has has also worked in politics, academia, film, radio and TV. Official Secrets, a major film about the challenge to democracy in the build-up to Iraq War based on a story he broke for the Observer in 2003, was released in 2019 starring Keira Knightley, Ralph Fiennes and Matt Smith.

Meet the Panelist : Zehra Zaidi

Zehra Zaidi is a lawyer and activist. She co-founded ‘Action for Afghanistan’ to help resettle Afghan refugees, act as a cross-party virtual think tank and push through several campaigns. Such campaigns include Homes for Afghans that appear to have been adopted in part by the Government; an APPG for Afghan Women and Girls that was launched in November 2022; an asylum route for Afghan women at risk; calls for greater participation of Afghan women in national and international policy making; and a call for a Global Summit on Afghan women and girls. Zehra started her career as a UK Solicitor in the City of London. She brings 15 years of experience in legal reform, and programmes and policy design in international development working with international and multilateral organisations, as well as sovereign governments. She is currently working on global governance, resilience, and climate issues.

Meet the Panelist : Zahra Joya

Zahra Joya is an Afghan journalist who was born in 1992 in Bamyan province, and she has been working as a journalist in Afghanistan since 2011. She has worked on women’s and children’s stories and has also written investigative reports. During her journey as a reporter, Joya was often the only female reporter in the newsroom. In 2020, she decided to create Rukhshana Media through personal savings. She chose the name of her news agency, Rukhshana, to commemorate a 19-year-old Afghan girl who ran away from home in Ghor province for a forced marriage and was stoned to death by the Taliban in 2015. Zahra was evacuated to Britain in August 2021 after the fall of Afghanistan. She managed Rukhshana Media for a year from her hotel room in London. Joya was chosen as one of the 12 women of 2022 by Time magazine because of her work. She also received the freedom of expression award from the city of Valencia, Spain, and the changemaker award from the Bill Gates Foundation.