Video recordings from “Media in the Shadow of War”

On Saturday, february 24th 2024, FOR organized a public seminar at Litteraturhuset (House of Litterature) in Oslo, Norway. There were more than ten speakers and sessions, and in excess of 150 people in attendance.

The entire seminar was video recorded. Here are the recordings, divided into separate sessions. You may also watch the whole seminar via this YouTube playlist.

We are working on providing sub-titles for Norwegian and other non-English viewers.

1. Welcome

Welcome and introduction by Marielle Leraand and John Y. Jones, organizers with FOR.

Marielle Leraand is co-founder of the newly established Norwegian Peace and Justice party FOR, has a background in Norwegian parties on the left, lastly as deputy-chair of the party Rødt and is currently engaged in resistance to Norway’s sending of weapons to Ukraine, support for Palestinian rights, women’s rights and freedom of expression.

John Y. Jones, co-initiator of SetJulianFree.org, with recent, related events “A hearing on Assange with UN-rapporteur Nils Melzer and renown lawyer Eva Joly”; “A tribute to Julian Assange” with i.a. John Shipton, Julian’s father, and jazz musicians; “Focus on Assange and Guantanamo” with Jeremy Corbyn and Guantanamo detainee Mansoor Adayfi; “The Crucifiction of Julian Assange” with Pulitzer prize-winning journalist Chris Hedges, actor Liv Ullmann and others in a specially adapted Mass in the Jakob Culture Church in Oslo.

2. Prof. Jeffrey Sachs interviewed by Ögmundur Jonasson

Professor Jeffrey Sachs, economist at Columbia University in New York and long-time adviser to Secretary Generals of UN and powerful states, will speak on “Media in the Shadow of Wars: The collapse and necessary healing of media in our time. Looking at Ukraine, Gaza, looming wars and the persecution of Julian Assange.”

Sachs has a background as an advisor to Gorbatchev, Medvedev, Yeltsin and Putin as well as Ukraine’s first president Leonid Kravchuk. He is often referred to as The Father of the UN Millennium Goals.

Sachs will participate on zoom directly from Ethiopia.

3. Prof. Mads Andenæs: The Law is on the side of Julian Assange!

Mads Andenæs, professor of law at the University of Oslo, has, to pick from a sea of international positions and honors, a background from Cambridge and Oxford Universities. Andenæs is a former member of the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, and engaged in PEN-Norway for many years in a commitment to stop the life-threatening harassment of Julian Assange and freedom of expression.

4. Dr. med. Mads Gilbert: We can stop the atrocities in Gaza!

Mads Gilbert is a Norwegian medical doctor and surgeon, a revered icon of humanism in a lifelong struggle for Palestinians and Gazans in particular, daily setting his own life at risk like so many health and social workers on the Gaza strip. He has recently visited the Middle East and brings fresh observations from this war-ravaged and troubled area. The last months he has daily been interviewed by Arabic, Indian, Egyptian and African TV-channels and radio-stations, as well as Western media like BBC, CNN, Al Jazeera, Democracy Now, NBC, AlArabia. For some odd reason rarely appearing on Norwegian NRK. He will speak to us directly online from a Gaza conference in Ankara.

• Subscribe to UN OCHA Flash Updates: https://www.ochaopt.org/publications/…
• OCHA on Palestine: https://www.ochaopt.org/

5. Dr. med. Ghada Karmi: Time to stop the genocide and weaponizing of antisemitism

Ghada Karmi, Palestinian medical doctor, academic and an acclaimed author, active for Palestine since 1972. She got her doctorate at the University of London in the History of Arabic Medicine. She is an associate fellow at the Royal Institute of International Affairs in London, visiting professor at London Metropolitan University and vice-chair of the Council for Arab-British Understanding. She was driven out of her homeland Palestine in 1948. Visiting her old home in Jerusalem she wrote in her book Return:

“All I could think of were the many alien people who had lived in these rooms after us, and how each one erased more and more of our presence there.”

6. Ögmundur Jonasson: Forgotten wars

Ögmundur Jonasson is an Icelandic long-time advocate of human rights and media freedom, former Icelandic government minister and politician, trade union leader and correspondent for Icelandic State Radio. Initiator of regular open meetings in Reykjavík on social and political issues.

7. Prof. Glenn Diesen: Russia-gate – The misguided role of media

Professor Glenn Diesen has studied in The Netherlands, Russia and Australia. Despite his young age is arguably one of Norway’s most competent and knowledgeable scholars on today’s Russia and Russian politics. His podcast is an expression of his deep engagement for freedom of speech. Through his prolific publishing and his popular podcast, he regularly brings to the public debate unprecedented and much needed information as well as a group of international experts in military, geopolitical and international politics, be it on Israel’s war on Gaza, NATO’s and Russia’s engagement in Ukraine.

8. Douglas Macgregor with Glenn Diesen

Douglas Macgregor is a retired U.S. Army colonel, government official, author, consultant, and political commentator. In recent years Macgregor has been a prolific guest and commentator also in alternative media, notedly for his criticism of US involvement in Ukraine and elsewhere.

9. Prof. Ola Tunander: The totalitarian media machine

Ola Tunander is Research Professor Emeritus, Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO). He received his PhD in 1989, headed PRIO’s Foreign and Security Policy Program and has lectured worldwide. He has contributed to official inquiries and written the original Western work on the concept of “deep state”. He is the author or editor of 15 books on history, geopolitics and military strategy including books on Psychological Operations, deception and submarines. His books have been on the reading list in Oxford University and US Naval War College. He has recently established the Think Tank Daidalos.

10. Torgeir Holgersen: To draw the line between Conspiracies and Facts

Torgeir Salih Holgersen is a human geographer and co-founder of the Norwegian party Peace and Justice – FOR. He works as a high school teacher and has coauthored several textbooks in geography and social studies. He has also published articles on the geopolitical background of various armed conflicts and genocides.

11. Dr. Deepa G. Driver: Democracy and the necessary media healing process

Dr. Deepa Govindarajan Driver is legal observer at the trials against Julian Assange at London’s Old Bailey and engaged in the Freedom of expression group BRIDGE. She is an economist and a union negotiator in UK and currently writing/editing a book, supported by Fritt Ord, with testimonies from and experiences made during the trials against Julian Assange, and its ramifications on jurisprudence and freedom of expression in UK and for the rest of us.

12. Craig Murray: Where are we now? Summing up from ICJ and Old Bailey

Craig Murray, former UK diplomat lost his job as ambassador to Uzbekistan after disclosing torture committed by the Uzbek Karimov administration. Craig has comprehensively covered the proceedings in The International Court of Justice (ICJ) in the Hague launched by South Africa on Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza. He is a close friend and confidant of Julian Assange and was an observer at the hearings in the Old Bailey against Assange. He publishes prolifically on his Substack homepage.

• Craig Murray’s homepage.