Join Alex Crawford for a cinema screening of her powerful Sky News documentary Women at War: Afghanistan

Join Sky News special correspondent Alex Crawford for an exclusive event at the Everyman cinema in Borough on April 13th in partnership with AnotherWay Now, a not-for-profit organisation dedicated to shining a light on human rights issues worldwide.

The event includes a special screening of Sky News documentary Women at War: Afghanistan, followed by a Q&A with Alex, one of the world’s most respected front-line reporters and a host of special guests that will give attendees a deeper understanding of the challenges caused by persecution from the Taliban and abandonment by the West. 

Also on the panel will be Zehra Zaidi and Zahra Joya, two of the most prominent voices in Afghan women’s rights. 

Lawyer and campaigner, Zehra Zaidi co-founded Action for Afghanistan, an advocacy organisation based in the UK. Before fleeing the country, Zahra Joya founded Rukhshana Media, a news agency reporting on life for women and girls in Afghanistan. She continues to run the agency from exile, publishing the reporting of her team of female journalists across Afghanistan, and was recognised as one of Time’s women of the year in 2022.

The panel will be moderated by Martin Bright – Editor-at-Large for free-expression magazine Index on Censorship. Martin has worked for over 20 years in journalism, alongside working in politics, academia, film, radio and TV. A story Martin broke for the Observer in 2003, became the storyline of ‘Official Secrets’ a major film starring Keira Knightley, Ralph Fiennes and Matt Smith, which explores the challenge to democracy in the build-up to the Iraq War.

Women at War: Afghanistan documentary 

The documentary delves into the ongoing struggle for women’s rights under one of the world’s most oppressive regimes and highlights the extraordinary courage and resilience of women’s resistance groups fighting to maintain their basic human rights, freedom, and identity. 

The film takes you on a journey through the secret safe houses of those brave enough to demonstrate on the streets, to the illegal schools where women and young girls risk everything just to learn to read and write.

Don’t miss this unique opportunity to witness these powerful stories and learn from the experts and survivors who bring them to light.

Tickets available via Eventbrite

Attendees are asked to pay what they can, with all proceeds going directly to AnotherWay Now.

Alex Crawford

Alex is Special correspondent for Sky News 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. 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. 

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 women’s 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.

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.

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.

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.

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