NEWS
The UK's Channel 4: five iconic moments from the broadcaster's coverage of the Middle East and Arab communities
Alastair Campbell’s infamous WMD interview
Perhaps one of the broadcaster’s most notorious interviews occurred in 2003. Alastair Campbell, communications director in Tony Blair’s government, was questioned over the media coverage of the Iraq invasion. Campbell was on the defensive following allegations that the UK government “deliberately exaggerated, abused and distorted intelligence” to justify the invasion. He said they had not.
The UK Chilcot inquiry into the 2003 invasion later concluded that the UK government misrepresented the severity of the threat posed by Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction.
The US-led invasion killed at minimum tens of thousands of people and fuelled sectarianism and extremism across the Middle East.
Channel 4 hires the first hijab-wearing TV newsreader, Fatima Manji
Fatima Manji, who started her career at the BBC, rose to prominence when she became a leading news presenter for Channel 4 in March 2016.
When asked why representation in journalism matters, Manji told The Guardian: “It matters because it’s really important that newsrooms reflect the populations they serve…It allows us to be better journalists - that’s why it’s important”.
Channel 4 commissions Waad al-Kateab as an exclusive film-maker in Syria
In 2015, Channel 4 commissioned Waad Al-Kateab, a young journalist in Aleppo, to make a film about life inside the city. As the war continued, the broadcaster took the decision to hire her exclusively to document life under siege.
Much of what Kateab covered came from the emergency room of the hospital where her doctor husband worked. Channel 4 praised the Syrian for humanising the victims, “showing us whole families in their worst moments”.
Kateab’s reports later became the basis of the award-winning film For Sama, which followed her experiences as a mother-to-be in Aleppo.
Jon Snow speaks out for the children of Gaza
Following the bombardment of Gaza in 2014, when over 2,000 Palestinians were killed, lead anchor Jon Snow made an impassioned speech about the children of Gaza on the channel's flagship news programme.
“I’m back and in the comfort of this studio, it’s hard to imagine I was ever away…
“In a very densely packed urban area, if you decide to throw missiles and shells, then undoubtedly you will kill children.”
As of 2014, roughly 43 percent of Gaza’s 1.8 million population was aged 14 or younger.
Channel 4 commissions Gogglebox, featuring hijab-wearing sisters from London
One of the broadcaster's run-away successes has been the smash hit Gogglebox - a show about people watching TV.
The first series launched in March 2013, and the nineteenth series began airing in February 2022.
Some of the show’s stand-out stars are Amani and Amira, two hijab-wearing sisters from north London.
The show has won several awards and was praised by critics for showing a diverse, modern representation of Britain.
'Watching Covid-19 footage from the hospitals reminds me of Aleppo'
There are many individuals - friends and colleagues of Waad and Hamza - that you will recognise from For Sama. Here is an update from Abd, who shares his reflections from his time in Aleppo in light of the recent Coronavirus situation…
There are multiple ways to die, but the result is always the same. From inside Syria - from what’s left of areas not controlled by the terrorist regime of Al-Assad - I wish for this terrible period to end without you losing a loved one.
I’ve been following the news about the Coronavirus and how it’s affecting the whole world - the panic and fear, how everyone could lose a loved one and how the whole world is sharing the same suffering, even if the danger depends on their living situation and age.
It may be hard for you to imagine the crimes the regime committed in Syria, but it’s very similar to what Corona is doing now - separating loved ones from one another. The difference is that the Assad and Russian regimes are only attacking Syrian people, while the virus is attacking the whole world.
The warplanes fly over us in the evening, warnings come from walkie talkies to clear the streets and the markets, and move towards basements and shelters. Some seconds later, you hear a big bomb. The warplanes hit yet another civilian area. The first responders, along with a group of civilians, move quickly towards the hit site to save whoever they can. The lucky ones from the injured people are the ones that get to the hospital first, because as a couple of minutes pass, the hospital wards are drawn completely with injured people. The race with time begins to save as many people as possible. The ER team works relentlessly for long hours after the massacre; strained eyes, bloodied hands, and tired faces. Nothing is heard except for medical devices and procedures’ names as well as the screams of the injureds’ families. Some people lose their lives before reaching the hospital because it can take the civil defense too much time to remove people from under the rubble of their houses.
On the 18th of November and due to the heavy airstrikes on the city, as well as the shelling particularly on the hospitals, only one hospital remained taking care of the injured. All the medical staffers gathered in that hospital. I was passing a friend in the ER corridor and he shouted at me. I felt like he had someone injured in the hospital and he told me his mother had died. I told him may she rest in peace and kept going. Even though I’m not a medical staffer, I was hoping to lend a hand and help to save people. There was no time to give condolences to my friend at that moment. It’s very hard to lose someone we love but what’s even harder is watching someone we love die without being able to help them at all.
As I’m watching the footage from the hospitals in the countries that have the most cases of Coronavirus, it reminds me of what was happening in Aleppo years ago. The doctors’ faces that have medical mask scars carved into them reminds me of the medical staffers’ faces as they’re trying to save lives after every massacre. The news about cases among the medical staffers reminds me of all the doctors, first responders, and civil defense members that we lost because the airstrikes targeted them while they were trying to save lives.
In the last days of the siege in Aleppo, some friends created a WhatsApp group and it was named, “The same fate holders,” because we were in the same city and we were going to share the same fate that is going to hit the city. We lost some of the friends who were in the group due to the airstrikes or the snipers’ bullets from the regime forces. Today, everyone is in “The same fate holders” because we’re all humans, we’re all being attacked by a virus, we’re all watching social media and following the news closely, and we’re all wishing for the moment that we hear a vaccine or medicine is found. Someday, we still hope to hear the international community will make a stand and take action to stop the regime’s crimes; to help us reach our dreams as free people.
My friends, I wish for you to stay safe and that the virus doesn’t find its way to you. I look forward to the day that Social media and TV programs will announce the virus’s defeat. Everyone on this planet deserves to live safely without any virus, and the people of Syria deserve to live safely without the dictator and criminal regime over them.
Abd
Nabil’s Story: I hope everyone who sees For Sama will help us tell the whole story
So many of our colleagues and friends, who were such a big part of our lives, were also a big part of For Sama. We want to share some familiar faces from the film with you: where they are now, their memories of Aleppo and what they hope For Sama can share to the world about Syria.
Here’s Nabil’s story...
I am Nabil Al-Sheikh Omar and I now live in Aleppo’s northern country-side in Syria. I’m currently volunteering as a medical case officer with Molham’s team in Aleppo’s northern countryside. I also work as a nurse with the Independent Doctors Association.
In East Aleppo, I was a nurse in Al-Quds hospital. This was my home and the staff were my little family.
I remember I was sleeping in a building adjacent to the hospital when it got hit on 27 April 2016. I was woken by the sound of the explosion and I went down to see cars burning in front of the hospital and injured bodies all over the place. I tried to find a way to enter the hospital through some crack in the ruined building. On top of that there was no sound coming from inside the hospital. All of that left me completely devastated.
On the very first day of the last attack on Aleppo, an airstrike hit and fifteen minutes later the injuries started to reach the hospital. I asked the first person I saw, “Where did the bomb land?”, only to realise that it was so far from us, it could mean that we were the last hospital standing. This day started with only 10 injured people but ended with a number of around 400, and left a river of blood in the hospital. We were expecting to be hit at any moment because all of the other hospitals were bombed out of service in less than 24 hours. A couple of days later, we were on a balcony where we used to hear the sirens of ambulances. Instead of that, we heard a warplane heading towards us, we heard the whistle of the bomb. Moments later, someone came in and said an exploding barrel had landed nearby and the people who were fortifying the hospital got hit and died. At the very same moment, we heard another barrel landing, we were completely terrified, expecting a barrel to hit us at any moment.
One day, we received word that our hospital was going to be destroyed by warplanes. In seconds, we decided to evacuate the wounded, so I left the hospital with about 60 injured to a nearby building. That building had no capacity to host the injured, the building was cold and had no heating tools of any kind, but in under an hour we made it as much of a shelter as possible.
In Aleppo there were hard moments and also a lot of beautiful ones. The freedom bus and the agriculture project were very beautiful, especially because I was working nights as a nurse and during the day as a farmer.
There are some moments that I’ll never forget. We were all afraid and discussed who’s going to leave first. Hamza was looking at me because I was the youngest, so I spoke first and said I’m a nurse I won’t leave - I can help if something happens. Then my brother said he won’t leave me behind, so we all agreed that we wouldn’t leave until all of the wounded had left. Then we would leave together. We stayed together in Hamza and Waad’s room until the end.
One of my friends who was with me in Aleppo, but who I didn’t meet until after we left, saw the film and told me, “I lived all of these events but Waad managed to recap all of these memories in two hours”.
What we lived through is always repeated in Idlib and Aleppo's suburbs, and every time something like this happens we remember what we lived through and stand helpless as we can’t do anything. I hope that everyone who watches the film and sees the whole picture, will amplify the people’s voice and spread the news about how the people of Idlib are in danger of the regime, and at the same time of Hay’at Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS). I hope that everyone does whatever they can so these families can live safely. And I hope that everyone who sees the film will help us tell the whole story.
For Sama Nominated for Best Documentary Feature at the Oscars
We are thrilled to announce that For Sama has been nominated for Best Documentary Feature at the Oscars! This nomination provides an even larger platform for us to be able to discuss the aims of the Action For Sama campaign with millions of people around the world.
We wish to congratulate the filmmaking team and their partners at Channel 4 News, ITN Productions, Republic Film Distribution & Frontline PBS. This recognition is so incredibly well deserved.
Watch the team celebrating when the news came in:
The second when the great news came:
— Waad Al-Kateab (@waadalkateab) January 13, 2020
For Sama made it to#Oscar2020
Thanks for everyone who opend his life to me and my Camera and also thanks for everyone who helped us and gave us lots of love though this long journey from Aleppo 2011 to the great team here today.@forsamafilm pic.twitter.com/b6kLExYNTy
For Sama was made to share the truth about what's happening in Syria and Action For Sama was launched to help spread the word even further.
Please support the heroic efforts of the humanitarians and medics still saving lives and donate to our partners at Help Refugees.
The United Nations is investigating the criminal targeting of hospitals and medical facilities in Syria. Join us and Physicians for Human Rights in telling the UN Secretary-General to make the findings public and name the perpetrators. Sign the petition here.
Thank you, as ever, for your support.
US Broadcast Premiere FRONTLINE PBS Tues Nov 19
For Sama will be broadcast on FRONTLINE PBS on Tues Nov 19, 9pm CT / 10pm ET
Audience held “Stop bombing hospitals” signs after For Sama screenings
Source: Esperanza Productions / AudioBoom, 17th Sep, 2019
Audience hold up posters STOP BOMBING HOSPITALS following discussion after screening of Waad al-Kateab’s compelling FOR SAMA in the IFI’s Cinema 1 (Sept.14, 2019). Filmmaker Anne Daly co-producer with Ronan Tynan of the award winning SYRIA – THE IMPOSSIBLE REVOLUTION captured the very strong feelings in this audio report about the need to do something about Idlib – the next Aleppo but on a frighteningly bigger scale with three million including one million children already in the firing line.
Ronan Tynan who chaired the event wrote this blog post:
I asked members of the audience to hold up signs reading STOP BOMBING HOSPITALS in Cinema 1 at the IFI after the discussion I chaired following the screening of FOR SAMA. Waad al-Kateab who made that compelling film had apparently done the same at a recent screening and it actually seemed the only authentic and valid protest one could make after watching her, Dr Hamza her husband and their baby daughter Sama being bombed relentlessly in a hospital by the Russian airforce and the Assad regime’s forces.
One expression of frustration from Waad on the sound track of her documentary ‘For Sama’ reminded me why Anne Daly and I made our film ‘Syria – The Impossible Revolution’. She mentioned the hundreds of thousands who would have seen her film reports on Channel 4 from Aleppo and wondered why they did not seem to make any difference. Meanwhile Anne and I got fed up with people telling us they did not understand what is going on in Syria so we made what we saw as a very ambitious historical style documentary about the rise of the Assad family, the peaceful uprising in 2011 and struggle for freedom up to the fall of Aleppo to help people understand what is going. ‘For Sama’ on the other hand allowed us to experience what it felt like day after day to be bombed while trying to save lives. Remarkable they survived considering before the fall of Aleppo their hospitals was the last out of nine still functioning!
For Sama is so authentic it will qualify as prima facie evidence of crimes against humanity when eventually Assad and his henchmen face trial, though it may take a long time. A fact brought how repeatedly to us at the moment making a new documentary on that very theme: BRINGING ASSAD TO JUSTICE.
For us however what was truly traumatic about watching FOR SAMA was knowing the Russian airforce and the Syrian regime and its various militias with Iran are subjecting well over three million civilians in idlib to the same terror. Over a thousand civilians have been murdered recently including over three hundred children. Despite talk of cease fires the slaughter and the relentless bombing of hospitals continues.
Hopefully FOR SAMA will make more people wake up and feel the pain and terror facing defenceless families in Idlib. We know what is going on. We have no defence because silence equals complicity.
And if you want to find out more of the context please check out our ‘Syria – The Impossible Revolution’.
Ronan L Tynan is Director of the multi award winning ‘Syrian – The Impossible Revolution’ and co-founder with Anne Daly of Esperanza Productions:
Web site: http://www.esperanza.ie
Twitter: @RonanLTynan
Affecting chronicle of life in war-torn Aleppo
Source: The Guardian, Mark Kermode, Observer film critic, Sun 15 Sep 2019 08.00 BST
There is a scene in the middle of this powerful, harrowing and deeply human documentary about life under siege in Aleppo, Syria, that perfectly encapsulates its mixture of horror and hope. In the terrible aftermath of yet another airstrike, a pregnant woman with broken limbs and shrapnel in her belly is brought into a makeshift theatre in al-Quds hospital. An emergency caesarean brings her critically unresponsive child into this world of carnage – a terrible, pitiable sight, made all the more unwatchable by the certainty that nothing so vulnerable could possibly survive such violence. Syrian citizen-journalist and mother Waad al-Kateab, whose frontline footage was seen in Channel 4 News’s Inside Aleppo reports, keeps filming, determined to bring such daily atrocities to the attention of the world. And then, as the spectacle seems too cruel to endure, a miracle occurs, offering a gasping glimpse of redemption amid this unfolding hell.
With footage as raw and dramatic as this, it’s a credit to composer Nainita Desai that her score remains restrained and understated throughout, emphasising subtler themes of endurance and empathy, while gesturing gently toward the possibility of hope – of love – even in the midst of tragedy.