Leonie Mellinger’s guest is the multi-award-winning journalist, writer and documentary maker, Ramita Navai.
She speaks passionately about impartiality and ethics in journalism and describes the chain of events surrounding the BBC’s decision not to broadcast her documentary Gaza: Doctors Under Attack which was instead shown on Channel 4. Ramita has strong views about the way she and her team were treated by BBC senior managers.
Her extraordinary career has taken her to some of the most dangerous places in the world and she talks about terrifying experiences ‘in the field’, and why it is so important to give a voice to those who would otherwise have been silenced.
Ramita's family left Tehran for Britain when she was a child, following the Islamic revolution, but her return to Iran decades later helped launch her journalistic career.
Her own ‘courage to speak’ has seen her become a critic of the Iranian government, record with dissidents in Assad’s Syria, outwit the Taliban to film inside an Afghan prison and to investigate whether Israel has committed war crimes in Gaza.
For more information on Ramita and her work please visit her website ramitanavai.com
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The Courage to Speak is from Leonie Mellinger Ltd.
It is produced by Square Elephant Productions with Danny Garlick.
Theme music composed by Guy Pearson.