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Times
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- Times
Russia tried to bury these war crimes — this play dares to expose them
The murderous Macbeth gets his comeuppance in the end. Medea kills her own children — tragic for them, catharsis for us. But can a play help to hold real evil accountable? Take Russia's war crimes against Ukraine. This year the US administration abolished the Russian war crimes investigations unit at the State Department, a serious blow to the pursuit of justice. If there's one reason to value Anastasiia Kosodii and Josephine Burton's new documentary play, The Reckoning, based on war crimes testimonies in Ukraine, it's as a particularly moving way to keep Russia's crimes in the public mind. But this play is so much more than that. Since the start of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine I have been working with a team of journalists and lawyers to catalogue, publicise and build legal cases of war crimes and crimes against humanity in Ukraine. Our aim is to combine the power of law and media to achieve justice much quicker than usually happens in wars. When you think about Nuremberg, the justice process for the Yugoslav wars or Rwanda, the accountability came long after the war finished. We want to start now. We call ourselves the Reckoning Project, and we have provided Kosodii and Burton with the materials for their play, which is running at the Arcola Theatre in Dalston, east London. The first phase of our work is built on the careful, often agonisingly detailed collection of witness testimonies by a specially trained team of Ukrainian reporters on the ground. We have collected more than 600 testimonies so far, cataloguing torture; sexual crimes; the bombardment of hospitals, schools and apartment blocks; deportations; the mass abduction of children; enforced disappearances; enforced indoctrination; and extrajudicial executions. This collection already marks a sea change. War testimonies are usually collected well after the crimes have been committed, and it is so difficult to reconstruct the truth years later. Janine di Giovanni, the Reckoning's chief executive, is a former war reporter for The Times and an international justice expert who has covered three genocides, starting from the wars in Yugoslavia, and frequently found that though she had been first on the scene of crimes, the way she recorded and preserved evidence made it inadmissible in court. Our first aim at the Reckoning Project is to make sure that journalists who come to a crime scene collect evidence that will be admissible, and will thus hasten justice. After the testimonies have been collected, they are analysed by lawyers and archivists in Berlin and London. They map the gruesome patterns, the repeat violations that show what we are witnessing are not one-off incidents but part of a larger Russian strategy. The lawyers build cases in courts of law, provide evidence to the Hague, create submissions to the United Nations and other international treaty bodies. Our journalists, meanwhile, create stories based on the archive. By putting journalists and lawyers together we expand the scope of justice to include both courts of law and the court of public opinion. We want to make the vague words about 'truth and justice' holding the powerful accountable tangible and impactful. When we first shared testimonies with Kosodii and Burton, I wondered how they would bring them to life. The testimonies are very detailed, but they show little emotion. The central testimony the play focuses on is about a janitor at a country house in the Kyiv region, near Bucha, who was looking after an estate when the Russian occupiers arrived. In the 70-odd pages of testimony the facts drip out slowly, each detail more harrowing than the last. The occupiers took over the house the janitor was looking after, then used it as a shooting range to murder civilians fleeing the advancing Russian forces by car. A whole column of cars was shot up. The janitor was tied up, then released, and left alone wandering the cemetery of bullet-shredded cars and corpses. • How can drama portray Russia? As the dramatists explained to me, the emotion in the testimony is less in any explicit language the janitor uses than in the way he speaks with the Reckoning reporter taking the testimony. Their conversation lasted on and off for many months. The janitor first didn't fully trust the reporter, then slowly opened up. The pivotal moment came when he told her about how he had tried to save a man hiding from the remaining Russian soldiers in another house. The man had refused his help, was caught and killed. The sense of guilt for not doing more to help the victim was weighing the janitor down. When he could finally talk it through, he opened up. At the same time the reporter has a reckoning of her own, for the first time coming to terms with her feelings of remorse for how she struggled to get her mother out of an occupied town when she was somewhere safe. So this is a story, and a drama, about how human connection, trust and empathy are essential for the truth to emerge. Part of the aim of Putin's invasion is to make the people of Ukraine so terrified that they will be too scared and ashamed to tell the horrifying truth of what they have been part of. What is striking in The Reckoning is how both the janitor and the reporter blame themselves for not moving faster to save other victims, as if their suffering is somehow the janitor's or the reporter's fault. Battling the sense of misplaced shame and repressed memory is all too common in other contexts — not least the Holocaust, which so many survivors were unwilling to talk about. And it has taken nearly a century for Ukraine to find a public expression — in the form of books, musicals, monuments and exhibits — for the many millions murdered by the Stalin regime to suppress Ukrainian independence. And in that sense this play is part of a greater journey to justice, where the traumas of the war are processed so that society can come to terms with, or at least to common grief for, what has been done to them — and name the guilty. The Reckoning is at the Arcola Theatre, London, to Jun 28,
Yahoo
22-05-2025
- Yahoo
Man who denies harassment banned from entire village
A CARLISLE man who denies breaching a restraining order has been granted bail on condition that he stays out of Dalston. Ashleigh Bell, 31, formally denied harassing the woman on May 19 when he appeared before a deputy district judge at the city's Rickergate court. His bail conditions also include a stipulation that he may not contact the woman involved. Deputy District Judge Andrew Garthwaite also explained that Bell must observe a strict exclusion zone designed to keep him away from the area of Carlisle where the woman lives; and nor can he go to Caldew School in Dalston. In the meantime, he must live and sleep at his home address in Beverley Rise, Carlisle. The case will be decided by a trial at a later date. The allegations is that Bell breached a restraining order by going to Caldew School as part of an attempt to contact the woman he is not allowed to see, despite this being explicitly forbidden by the order.
BBC News
12-05-2025
- Business
- BBC News
East London bakery The Dusty Knuckle wins King's Award
"We always say, if young people have a reason to be excited about their future, they'll choose to invest in their present," says Charlie is the training programme manager at an east London bakery and cafe, called The Dusty Knuckle. Located in London's Dalston and Harringay neighbourhoods, it runs a youth programme for 18 to 25 year olds yet to find their legitimate career path, and supports them through training and community interest company has won a King's Award for Enterprise, in the Promoting Opportunity Through Social Mobility Dusty Knuckle Bakery's chief executive Max Tobias says the recognition "resonates deeply with us and makes us ever more determined to assist those young people that society leaves behind". Among those who have been supported is Cyril Williams He is one of more than 250 young people who trained in the youth programme at The Dusty Knuckle - and now he is a barista at the Dalston branch."I'm an ex-prisoner, we all come from all different types of background. I am now able to pay for my own property, I live in my own house," he says."It's things like that that can move you forward towards the future."According to The Dusty Knuckle, 69% of its trainees have had a custodial sentence. Following a 12-week programme, 60% of its graduates went on to find employment or further education. Sina has also graduated from the youth is now a head chef at Manna. "When coming out of jail, my mind was puzzled with what I was going to do," he says."I had no life experience, except crime. On my second day of release, I came into The Dusty Knuckle. "Going through that change in life really allowed me to grow."The bakery accepts referrals from prisons, charities, families, and mental health programme focuses on teaching young people valuable skills such as communication, teamwork, and responsibility."When you shine on the best bits of young people, they can do unimaginable things," says Ms Atkinson. The King's Awards for Enterprise celebrates outstanding achievements by UK categories include innovation, international trade and sustainable year, 197 businesses representing a diverse range of sectors were recognised by His Majesty The King as among the best in the these, a total of 33 awards went to businesses in Greater London. Nineteen were recognised in the international trade category, nine for innovation, three for sustainable development and two for promoting opportunity through social Tobias says: "This award is testament to the consistent hard work and determination of the staff and trainees at The Dusty Knuckle Bakery since 2014. We are grafters. "We believe that an exceptional standard is worth making the effort for and is achievable by everyone and anyone. "In fact, the diversity of humans behind the food here is what makes Dusty Knuckle such a special place."
Yahoo
12-05-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Six News & Star Camera Club pictures from members
WE picked six of our favourite News & Star Camera Club images. The sunset pictured from Harras Road, Whitehaven by Adrian Strand. (Image: Adrian Strand/News & Star Camera Club) The 80th anniversary of VE Day is marked in Brampton and captured by Paul Grindley. (Image: Paul Grindley/News & Star Camera Club) Poppy bombing in Dalston to mark the 80th anniversary of VE Day captured by Heather Harrison. (Image: Heather Harrison/News & Star Camera Club) Geese and Goslings at Crofton Lake captured by Dot Fraser. (Image: Dot Fraser/News & Star Camera Club) A blossom tree in the Lanercost Churchyard captured by Susan Farish. (Image: Susan Farish/News & Star Camera Club)
The Independent
08-05-2025
- Business
- The Independent
Bargain Hunt star charged with offences relating to terrorist financing
An art dealer has been charged with offences relating to terrorist financing. Oghenochuko 'Ochuko' Ojiri, 53, faces eight counts of failing to make a disclosure during the course of business within the regulated sector, contrary to section 21A of the Terrorism Act 2000, the Metropolitan Police said. He is the first person to be charged with the specific offence. The charges relate to a period from October 2020 to December 2021. Ojiri has been a regular on BBC's Bargain Hunt and Antiques Road Trip for years. He owns a vintage shop and art gallery in Stoke Newington Road in Dalston, London. A statement from The Met Police read: 'Oghenochuko Ojiri, 53 (05.05.72), of west London, has been charged following an investigation into terrorist financing by officers from the National Terrorist Financial Investigation Unit (NTFIU), part of the Met's Counter Terrorism Command. 'Following authorisation from the Crown Prosecution Service, he has been charged with eight counts of failing to make a disclosure during the course of business within the regulated sector, contrary to section 21A of the Terrorism Act 2000. The charges relate to a period from October 2020 to December 2021.' The charges were authorised by the Crown Prosecution Service following an investigation into terrorist financing by officers from the Met's National Terrorist Financial Investigation Unit, the force said. The Treasury, HMRC and the Met's Arts & Antiques Unit were all also involved in the probe. Ojiri, of west London
