Heather Blake, UK Director, Reporters Without Borders 

Asad Qureshi, Documentary Filmmaker 

Dr Robert Johnson, Lecturer in History of War, University of Oxford             

Felix Kuehn, Co-founder Afghanwire.com  

Alex Strick van Linschoten, Co-founder Afghanwire.com 

The event will have a Question Time format: you can still send your questions for speakers to scsr@sussex.ac.uk or on Twitter to @SussexSCSR tagged with #NSCAfPak

Speakers’ Bios

Heather Blake

Heather is the UK Director for Reporters Without Borders, UK (Reporters Sans Frontières) and a Human Rights Research Associate to the Changing Character of War Programme, Oxford University.

Heather is the rapporteur for human rights foreign policy reports on Responsibility to Protect, the UN Human Rights Council Review and the occupied Palestinian Territories.  She is working on her fourth policy report on Kidnapping for Ransom.  Heather advises governments and the UN on human rights issues primarily on the Middle East and North Africa, and is a member of the FCO UN Human Rights Stakeholders Committee and the Foreign Secretary’s sub-committee for Freedom of Expression on the Internet.  Heather has published articles and given many interviews to the international and UK media on press freedom and human rights, and is invited to speak regularly on human rights and press freedom issues at universities, various human rights institutions, UN missions, NGOs, and the UK and European Parliaments.

Felix Kuehn

Felix travelled to Afghanistan first some 5 years ago, having spent several years in the Middle East including just short of a year in Yemen, where he first learnt Arabic in 2002. In 2006, he founded AfghanWire.com together with Alex Strick van Linschoten. He is currently working on a history of southern Afghanistan 1970-2001 together with Alex Strick van Linschoten.

He speaks Arabic, English and German and can get by in French and Spanish. He hopes to be able to say the same about Pashtu soon. Felix holds a degree from the School of Oriental and African Studies (BA Arabic and Development Studies), and lives permanently in Kandahar, Afghanistan.

Dr Robert Johnson

Rob Johnson’s primary research interests are strategy, conventional operations, insurgency and counter-insurgency. He conducts research on conflicts ‘amongst the people’ in Afghanistan, Pakistan, India and the Middle East. At Oxford, he delivers a specialist masters programme on the Changing Character of War and another on Strategic Studies in the Department of Politics and International Relations. He acts as a specialist advisor to the British, American, Danish, French, German and Afghan armed forces on security, stabilisation and transition. His forthcoming work includes: a chapter on the Afghan National Army’s approach to COIN in an edited work on Countering Insurgency in Afghanistan, and a volume on the global use of partnered auxiliary forces in counter-insurgency. He is a former officer of the British Army, and lecturer at Warwick and Bath Universities. He was the Deputy Director of CCW 2008-2012, and is an Associate of the War, State and Society Centre at Exeter and SAIS in Washington DC.

Alex Strick van Linschoten

A graduate of the School of Oriental and African Studies (BA Arabic and Persian), Alex Strick van Linschoten first came to Afghanistan six years ago as a tourist. In 2006, he founded AfghanWire.com together with Felix Kuehn. He is currently working on a PhD at the War Studies Department of King’s College London on the identity of the Taliban movement as expressed through their own writings and statements pre-2001; as co-editor of a book written by former Taliban envoy to Pakistan, Mullah Abdul Salam Zaeef, published by Hurst and Columbia University Press to critical acclaim in winter 2010; a history of the relationship between the Taliban and al-Qaeda entitled An Enemy We Created: The Myth of the Taliban – Al-Qaeda Merger, 1970-2010; and a volume of poetry written by Taliban members, published by Hurst (UK) entitled Poetry of the Taliban. He will soon start work on a large project translating primary sources relating to the Afghan Taliban.

He has worked as a freelance journalist from Afghanistan, Syria, Lebanon and Somalia, writing for Foreign Policy, International Affairs, ABC Nyheter, The Sunday Times (UK), The Globe and Mail (Canada) and The Tablet (UK). He speaks Arabic, Farsi, Pashtu and German and can get by in French and Dutch.

Alex has participated in panels hosted by The Frontline Club (UK), New York University (USA), Council on Foreign Relations (USA), Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (USA); and he has given lectures/presentations at the School of Oriental and African Studies (UK), International Institute of Strategic Studies (UK), The British Defence Academy (UK), the London School of Economics (UK), King’s College London (UK), Chatham House (UK), Cambridge University (UK), Uppingham School (UK), Oxford University (UK), Princeton University (USA), the Brookings Institute (USA), the United States Senate (USA), the United States War College (USA), the Middle East Institute (USA), the Naval Postgraduate School (USA), Harvard University (USA), and the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs (Norway).

Asad Qureshi

Asad is a film maker who has developed his own niche in his endeavours and profession. A chance meeting with Oscar winning film director John Schlesinger in 1978 while he was directing Yanks in the Bradford area led to his introduction into the film industry. Since then he has learnt to set himself apart from the normal run of the mill genre in film making by selecting assignments to focus on that have undertones of danger and are a challenge. Difficult geographical terrains and complexity of subjects have always fascinated him and drew him to such projects. Over time, he has become known as someone who is totally dedicated and uncompromising on his quest to uncover and tell the truth. He has straddled different cultures and continents in his search for the truth; he worked with the A tier cast and crews from the US with large budgets to almost one man bands do-everything himself documentaries on shoe-string budgets.

He has always shunned personal aggrandizement and sensationalism; the result is a number of landmarks of gritty, pioneering and legacy building works of art. Take The Bounty Hunter, made in 1992 and being his debut as director. This film centred on the thorny and vexed issue of forced marriages in the ethnic communities and the resultant problem of run-away girls. This film was an acclaimed piece of work that was not only heralded in the arts circles but was a much debated film in social and political spheres, the British Parliament being one such forum. Inspiration was drawn from this film to form the Ethnic Marriage Guidance Counsellors in the UK, precursor to the present day law in the country to ban arranged marriages by force.

Before a latter day disaster in one project that involved the Taliban in the most dangerous of locations in North Waziristan, he has worked on several films covering locations in England, Tibet, Saudi Arabia, Norway and Pakistan and mountain ranges such as Karokorams, Pamirs and Hindu Kush.

As for the last disastrous campaign, he travelled to the heart of the Taliban territory to film a peace-making initiative between the Taliban, Pakistan and the Western Allies. The trip under-taken by Asad and his three colleagues, Khalid Khawaja, Col Imam and Rustam Khan went horribly off script as they were betrayed and all four ended up being captives of the Taliban. Demands for ransom, release of Taliban prisoners followed. Just over a month into their captivity Asad’s dear friend and guide Khalid Khawaja was executed. After 165 days of captivity Asad and his assistant were released six months later Col Imam was executed.

Asad continues to make films and holds the memory of Khalid Khawaja and Col Imam dear to his heart.

The NSC Series brings academic experts and practitioners to Sussex to share their insights on the complexities of contemporary international relations.

Posted on behalf of: Sussex Centre for Conflict and Security Research
Last updated: Tuesday, 2 February 2016