7.30pm, Thursday 9 February, in the Small Hall, Friends House, 173–177 Euston Road, London NW1 (opposite Euston station).

Organised by Peace News (www.peacenews.info) with Quaker Peace and Social Witness

Web:  http://tinyurl.com/afghanistanbth
Facebook:  http://tinyurl.com/afghanistanbthfacebook

Photojournalist Guy Smallman has been to Afghanistan four times, working independently of the NATO media system. He is the only western journalist to have visited the scene of the Granai massacre in which 147 people, including 93 children, were killed by NATO bombing. Just returned from his latest trip to Afghanistan this January, Guy will be talking about his work, which documents the everyday realities faced by ordinary Afghan civilians, realitities that are ignored or obscured in mainstream media coverage and in party political debates: struggles with poverty, drug abuse and unemployment, as well as the direct effect of the war. There will also be a screening of his short film “Fifteen million Afghans”.

You can view some of Guy’s photographs here:  http://www.tinyurl.com/peacenews345

Former SAS soldier Ben Griffin served in Iraq and Afghanistan. In 2005, after three months in Baghdad, he left the British Army stating citing “illegal” tactics used by US forces there. In 2008 he stated: “I have no doubt in my mind that non-combatants I personally detained were handed over to the Americans and subsequently tortured”, and is now subject to a life-time gagging order, preventing him from talking further about the topic. He is a founder member of Veterans for Peace UK:  http://veteransforpeace.org.uk