NEWS
Middle east monitor: Syria rights groups call on UN to investigate Tadamon massacre
Syrian human rights organisations have called on the United Nations to investigate the Tadamon massacre in Damascus in 2013 carried out by members of the regime's Branch 227.
"We are writing to demand immediate action to address this massacre, which amounts to a war crime, and hold perpetrators accountable at the UN Security Council," said the letter, which was addressed to the US permanent representative to the UN, Linda Thomas Greenfield.
Among the signatories are the White Helmets, Action for Sama, and the Syrian Network for Human Rights.
Two weeks ago, the Guardian published a report on how two academics hunted down a Syrian war criminal filmed brutally killing 41 people.
In the footage the intelligence officer, later identified Amjad Youssuf, can be seen asking civilians to run towards a pit in the ground, shooting at them and then watching as they hit a pile of other dead bodies.
The video, leaked by a military recruit after he escaped the country, shows two main perpetrators of the massacre setting light to the pile of bodies, then casually laughing and smoking.
everal Syrians have been able to identify family members from the video, many of whom are Palestinians from the Yarmouk refugee camp.
The letter laments the lack of outcry from the international community, particularly "in the context of similar crimes being committed by Russian forces in Ukraine."
In 2013, the Tadamon district, where the massacre took place, was a combat zone where Syrian opposition forces faced the government.
The letter to the UN goes on to say that for years human rights organisations have documented targeted attacks on schools and hospitals and seen photos of tortured bodies being smuggled out of the country,
"But never before have we seen such clear evidence of a war crime committed and videotaped by Assad's intelligence services in broad daylight, in cold blood, with no regard for the humanity of the victims or concern for consequences."
In September last year the UN said that at least 350,209 people had been killed in the Syrian war, likely to be an underestimation. More than 100,000 Syrians are missing.
The UK's Channel 4: five iconic moments from the broadcaster's coverage of the Middle East and Arab communities
Alastair Campbell’s infamous WMD interview
Perhaps one of the broadcaster’s most notorious interviews occurred in 2003. Alastair Campbell, communications director in Tony Blair’s government, was questioned over the media coverage of the Iraq invasion. Campbell was on the defensive following allegations that the UK government “deliberately exaggerated, abused and distorted intelligence” to justify the invasion. He said they had not.
The UK Chilcot inquiry into the 2003 invasion later concluded that the UK government misrepresented the severity of the threat posed by Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction.
The US-led invasion killed at minimum tens of thousands of people and fuelled sectarianism and extremism across the Middle East.
Channel 4 hires the first hijab-wearing TV newsreader, Fatima Manji
Fatima Manji, who started her career at the BBC, rose to prominence when she became a leading news presenter for Channel 4 in March 2016.
When asked why representation in journalism matters, Manji told The Guardian: “It matters because it’s really important that newsrooms reflect the populations they serve…It allows us to be better journalists - that’s why it’s important”.
Channel 4 commissions Waad al-Kateab as an exclusive film-maker in Syria
In 2015, Channel 4 commissioned Waad Al-Kateab, a young journalist in Aleppo, to make a film about life inside the city. As the war continued, the broadcaster took the decision to hire her exclusively to document life under siege.
Much of what Kateab covered came from the emergency room of the hospital where her doctor husband worked. Channel 4 praised the Syrian for humanising the victims, “showing us whole families in their worst moments”.
Kateab’s reports later became the basis of the award-winning film For Sama, which followed her experiences as a mother-to-be in Aleppo.
Jon Snow speaks out for the children of Gaza
Following the bombardment of Gaza in 2014, when over 2,000 Palestinians were killed, lead anchor Jon Snow made an impassioned speech about the children of Gaza on the channel's flagship news programme.
“I’m back and in the comfort of this studio, it’s hard to imagine I was ever away…
“In a very densely packed urban area, if you decide to throw missiles and shells, then undoubtedly you will kill children.”
As of 2014, roughly 43 percent of Gaza’s 1.8 million population was aged 14 or younger.
Channel 4 commissions Gogglebox, featuring hijab-wearing sisters from London
One of the broadcaster's run-away successes has been the smash hit Gogglebox - a show about people watching TV.
The first series launched in March 2013, and the nineteenth series began airing in February 2022.
Some of the show’s stand-out stars are Amani and Amira, two hijab-wearing sisters from north London.
The show has won several awards and was praised by critics for showing a diverse, modern representation of Britain.
Independent: Protests after Syria appointed to WHO’s executive board
Protesters accused the Assad regime of years of attacks on hospitals
(AP)
Medical workers in Syria have protested furiously after the country’s government was elevated to the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) executive board.
They took to the streets in rebel-held Idlib after learning the regime of Bashar al-Assad had been appointed to the body after a vote that faced no debate or opposition.
The WHO’s executive board members hold three-year terms. They set the agenda for its health assembly – the decision-making body – and implement its policies.
Protesters noted the grim irony of the Assad regime’s appointment, following its years of bombing raids on hospitals and clinics during Syria’s bloody, 10-year civil war.
“We reject the idea that our killer and he who destroyed our hospitals be represented on the executive board,” read a banner carried by some of the protesters on Monday. Some two dozen medical staff members protested outside the main health department.
Rifaat Farhat, a senior health official in Idlib, said Saturday’s vote “contradicts all international and humanitarian laws”.
Salwa Abdul-Rahman, a citizen journalist based in Idlib province – the last rebel stronghold in the country – said he feared a representative of the government could try to cut medical aid to the region, which is home to millions of people.
Hundreds of medical centres have been bombed, mostly in government airstrikes. Half the remaining hospitals and health facilities are functioning only partially or not at all, while 70 per cent of Syria’s medical personnel have fled.
UN watch: Syria Elected to WHO Executive Board, Activists Outraged
GENEVA, May 29, 2021 — Syria was elected to the World Health Organization’s executive board on Friday, sparking outrage among human rights activists worldwide.
“Syria’s election is a travesty,” said Hillel Neuer, executive director of UN Watch, an independent non-governmental human rights group based in Switzerland. “It’s like appointing a pyromaniac to be the town fire chief.”
“Syria’s Assad regime, with the help of its allies Russia and Iran, systematically bombs hospitals and clinics, killing doctors, nurses, and others as they care for the sick and injured. Health professionals have also been arrested, disappeared, imprisoned, tortured and executed. Electing this murderous regime to govern the world’s top health body is an insult to Assad’s millions of victims, and sends a terrible message,” said Neuer.
White Helmets, the Syrian civil defense group of emergency medical workers, also condemned the election. “We are appalled by the WHO’s decision to reward the Assad regime for destroying hospitals and killing doctors and refusing to provide medical assistance to Syrians by electing it as a member of its executive board,” tweeted the group.
Neuer called on UN chief Antonio Guterres and WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus to denounce Syria’s election.
Over the past 10 years in Syria, there were 598 attacks on health care facilities and personnel, 350 health care facilities were targeted, and 930 medical professionals were killed, according to Physicians For Human Rights.
Affecting chronicle of life in war-torn Aleppo
Source: The Guardian, Mark Kermode, Observer film critic, Sun 15 Sep 2019 08.00 BST
There is a scene in the middle of this powerful, harrowing and deeply human documentary about life under siege in Aleppo, Syria, that perfectly encapsulates its mixture of horror and hope. In the terrible aftermath of yet another airstrike, a pregnant woman with broken limbs and shrapnel in her belly is brought into a makeshift theatre in al-Quds hospital. An emergency caesarean brings her critically unresponsive child into this world of carnage – a terrible, pitiable sight, made all the more unwatchable by the certainty that nothing so vulnerable could possibly survive such violence. Syrian citizen-journalist and mother Waad al-Kateab, whose frontline footage was seen in Channel 4 News’s Inside Aleppo reports, keeps filming, determined to bring such daily atrocities to the attention of the world. And then, as the spectacle seems too cruel to endure, a miracle occurs, offering a gasping glimpse of redemption amid this unfolding hell.
With footage as raw and dramatic as this, it’s a credit to composer Nainita Desai that her score remains restrained and understated throughout, emphasising subtler themes of endurance and empathy, while gesturing gently toward the possibility of hope – of love – even in the midst of tragedy.