Saleyha Ahsan

Dr Saleyha Ahsan is a freelance reporter and film maker and A&E doctor who has traveled to conflict zones in North Africa and Asia and made films and news reports including Libya, Syria, Bosnia, Palestine, India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. She appeared in a contravertial 2013 video in Syria with the "Dr Rola" who featured prominently on the BBC's Panorama calling for bombings of the Syrian government.

Background

Although British, Saleyha Ahsan has stated that "my roots are in Pakistan and Afghanistan." She was the first Muslim woman to graduate from Sandhurst as a British Army Officer. She joined the Royal Army Medical Corps and led her troop on a peace keeping mission in Bosnia.

From 2001 to 2006 Ahsan studied Medicine at the University of Dundee, gaining an MBChB. While studying medicine she was awarded scholarships and awards and developed her career as a film maker. She continues to work as an A&E doctor.

Journalism

Specialising in reports of suffering from war zones, Ahsan has had a remarkable career as a journalist, producing films for a variety of different UK TV and radio programmes, national newspapers and journals. She is a columnist for the Guardian. and has written for the Lancet and the New Internationalist.. She works for Knight Ayton as a "news and current affairs presenter".

Bosnia

In 2003 Saleyha went back to Bosnia where she had served with the Army, to film "for a charity supporting conflict recovery".

Libya

Ahsan herself reported that "It was by some bizarre fluke that returning home from that first short trip that I sat next to Nader Elhamessi, a Libyan, a Londoner for many years and one of the founders of the aid organization World for Libya". She spent six months "independently filming doctors on the frontline" and producing reports which were aired by BBC online, BBC’s From Our Own Correspondent, Channel 4 News online, the BMJ online and Latitude News. Ahsan is quoted as stating that she "found on (sic.) organisation online called Global Relief Libya - doctors organising themselves and getting involved".

Syria

Apparent conicidence also took Dr Ahsan to Syria; she reports that she first met Dr Rola at a Royal Society of Medicine event in London early in 2012 whose charity, Hand in Hand for Syria, invited her there in December 2012. Dr Ahsan featured in a controversial 2013 video with Dr Rola which was shown on the BBC in the run up to a UK parliamentary vote on whether to bomb Syria. On the 6th of November, 2013, she posted a story as a guest blogger on the UK DFID website entitled Saving Syria's children which stated that she witnessed the alleged Aleppo school 'napalm' attack of 26th August, 2013 and expanding very slightly on the information disclosed about it hitherto. On 21 September 2013, she published a piece in the Guardian headlined "Healthcare workers in Syria need international protection - The Assad regime still poses a significant risk to civilians, doctors, the injured and those seeking medical attention".

Productions

Even while otherwise employed, such as while studying medicine, Ahsan has been remarkably successful at continuing to produce films.

2001 - Dangerous Journeys

Ahsan's Linked-In page reports that in 2001 she successfully pitched an idea to Channel 4 to travel to India and Pakistan and spend 5 weeks there recording interviews with the Kashmiri Mujahideen. "After gaining exclusive access just weeks after 9/11" she presented a BBC5 Live special report from a Mujahideen training camp in Kashmir and produced Dangerous Journeys (by Chameleon Films).

2002 - Article 17-Doctors in Palestine

While studying medicine Ahsan was sponsored by the British Council to make this film, which is available on Youtube. Article 17 of the 4th Geneva Convention states that "civilians should be able to access health care in situations of conflict", which Ahsan found not to apply in Palestine.

2007 - My Mother's Daughter

Ahsan's debut cinematic short film was the 12 minute My Mother’s Daughter which won Best European Film at the 2008 Pangea Film Festival, Los Angeles. The vimeo description reads: "Joyce, Yvonne Ridley’s mother, a devout Christian relays this account of when her daughter, a journalist came back from Afghanistan after being detained by the Taliban converted to Islam."

2013 - Trust Me I'm A Doctor

In 2013 Ahsan co-presented BBC2's popular Trust Me I'm A Doctor in which she gave some simple lifesaving tips and answered viewer's health-related questions.

In production

Ahsan was awarded a Radio 4 drama script commission due to be broadcast in 2013. She is now working with the Raindance Filmmaking Institute on her first feature film script.

Law

Ahsan's website has stated that she is interested in "the growing use of secret evidence within the British justice system".

In 2010 she published a piece in the Guardian entitled Guantánamo: holding the 'healers who harm' accountable critical of torture practices at Guantanamo Bay.

In 2011 she completed a masters degree in International Human Rights and Humanitarian Law from Essex University.

In 2012 she published a piece in the Guardian entitled "Secret evidence is the state's secret weapon The Home Office argues for secret evidence in Siac deportation cases on national security grounds – except when it applies to them" about the use of secret evidence in the special immigration appeals commission.