Syrian independent journalism dead/missing

[Michael K.]

Italian journalist Domenico Quirico, after having been held captive for 152 days by Syrian rebels, wrote in the Italian daily La Stampa: "In Syria, I encountered the land of evil." Quirico is not the only journalist who recalls his mission to Syria in such a bitter way. Jonathan Alpeyrie, a French-American photographer held in northern Syria for 81 days by Islamist rebels, told the Associated Press: "I will never go back to Syria." -

Read the whole story:
http://www.fairobserver.com/region/middle_east_north_africa/russian-roulette-covering-war-syria-01748/

Journalists have been working in Syria since the beginning of the conflict, often mentioning the high risk of operating in the region. What has transformed Syria into the world's most dangerous country for journalists is the number of war correspondent casualties, the unprecedented rate of kidnappings and the presence of many, often rival, armed groups.

According to Reporters Without Borders (RWB) data — published before the killing of Sotloff — 39 professional journalists (12 of them foreigners) and 122 Syrian citizen-journalists have been killed in Syria in connection with their work since March 2011.

Since the start of conflict in Syria, government forces have arrested more than 200 journalists. At least 58 have been arrested or kidnapped by nongovernment forces such as the Free Syrian Army, Jabhat al-Nusra and the Islamic State (IS). According to RWB, nine foreign and 20 Syrian journalists were missing or held hostage in May 2014. The same report notes that the Syrian government held around 40 journalists and citizen-journalists at the time...

Many war correspondents believe the Syrian conflict is a new phase in war reporting. Journalists such as Mark Doyle, the BBC's world affairs correspondent, believe that: "Syria is a very dramatic example of the way that war, and conflict journalism, have changed over the years in many parts of the world."

These issues forced some mainstream news media to stop sending their journalists to Syria. Others, like The Sunday Times, decided to defer stories from freelancers since the death of its reporter, Marie Colvin. They believe that accepting freelancers' stories encourages them to take additional risks. The consequences of high risks for journalists in Syria have directly affected the media output covering the conflict.

Journalists have a pivotal role in the presentation of wars and vivid images of conflicts. Howard Tumber, the director of research Department of Journalism at City University London, noted this aspect of journalism: "It is the frontline correspondents who act as the major definers of reality as regards war for the huge audiences back home." Now the war in Syria is, one by one, losing its "major definers."



http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2168079/Inside-Syrias-27-torture-centres-We-suck-blood-floor.html

'We took their fingernails out with pliers and we made them eat them. We made them suck their own blood off the floor': Inside Syria's '27 torture centres'

By Anthony Bond
10:14 03 Jul 2012, updated 18:46 03 Jul 2012






Syrian Cartoonist Who Vanished Died After Police Torture, New Reports Confirm

http://artforum.com/news/id=55318

In reports that began emerging at the end of last month, sources are now confirming that the renowned Syrian cartoonist Akram Raslan died in detention at the hands of Syrian police, allegedly due to torture-inflicted wounds. After Raslan began posting cartoons critical of Assad's regime on Facebook, security forces working under Assad quietly captured him in October 2012 in the Syrian city of Hama.

Reports of his death had started circulating as early as 2013, though they remained unconfirmed for years in part because Raslan and other political prisoners are "usually sent to undisclosed locations and cut off entirely from the rest of the world," according to Al Bawaba, which noted: "Most people had a trouble believing he was dead. No one knew where he'd been taken, what his charge was or seen him go to trial. The mounting questions bred as much pain as they did hope he still might be alive."

Slate.fr and the Gulf Center for Human Rights have published more on the story in French and Arabic, respectively.

[Michael K.]

http://www.albawaba.com

America's gulag: Syrian regime was a 'common destination' for CIA rendition

Published February 5th, 2013 - 12:17 GMT via SyndiGate.info


Syria was a key participant in the C.I.A. rendition program at a time when President George W. Bush's administration labelled Damascus part of the "axis of evil," according to a report by the Open Society Justice Initiative.

The report - titled "Globalizing Torture" - said President Bashar al-Assad's regime was one of the "most common destinations for rendered suspects," indicating an established security relationship between Syrian intelligence and Western agencies.

Though the West now strongly criticizes Assad for his military's onslaught against his own people, relations were not always so strained.

After the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, Syria provided the U.S. with intelligence on a number of occasions.

Testimony given by Maher Arar - a Syrian-Canadian abducted and sent to Syria by the U.S. in 2002 - shows what conditions were like for the detainees. Arar said he was regularly tortured to extract a confession of guilt and kept in a three-by-six-foot cell that was "like a grave."

In November 2003, Cofey Black, then counterterrorism co-ordinator, said: "The Syrian government has provided some very useful assistance on al Qaeda in the past."

In one case, Syria alerted the U.S. to a plot to bomb the U.S. Fifth Fleet in Bahrain.

The Bush administration also blocked the "Syria Accountability Act," which would have imposed harsher sanctions on Assad, citing cooperation in the "War on Terror."

After the invasion of Iraq relations soured somewhat, with the U.S. finally withdrawing its ambassador to Syria in 2008 after the assassination of Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.

The report also found that more than a quarter of all U.N.-recognized countries took part in the program to detain and torture suspected Islamic radicals with impunity.

The scale of the rendition program was first uncovered by U.K. journalist Stephen Grey in an investigation for the London-based New Statesman magazine titled "America's Gulag."

Albawaba.com