News: Civil War in Syria

Pro-Freedom · May 15, 2017

Assad commemorates 69th Nakba Day with Nakba 2.0, once again with the support from the "international community", the victims are collectively demonised as "terrorists" for daring to demand the rights and freedoms that are their birthright in their own homelands.

Pro-Freedom · May 15, 2017

Pro-Freedom said: ↑

The US has been bombing Syria since 2014. According to Airwars, there have been 7,919 US strikes on Syria. In March, more then 40 civilians were killed when a US airstrike hit a mosque in Al Jina, Aleppo. A couple days later a US airstrike killed over 150 people, covering in a school in Mansoura, Raqqa. There was little resentment, and no urgent anti-war protest. Just as no anti-war protest were arranged when Assad gassed civilians to death in Khan Sheikhun,Idlib. But now, for the first time when the US target's Assad regime, the hypocrites on the left are crying out for protest to "Stop the War". These people do not give a crap about the lives of Syrian civilians. All they are concerned about is to preserve a murderous, grotesque dictatorship.

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As ever, the anti-some-wars left is all for genocide, just as long as Assad's safe.

Antiwar Coalitions Silent, as Russia and the United States Agree to Resume Coordinated Strikes in Syria

13-05-2017:...These joint U.S.-Russian airstrikes will undoubtedly lead to more civilian casualties, while Assad remains shielded from further attacks.

It seems unlikely, however, that the antiwar movement will have much to say about these deaths, as bombs dropped on anyone other than Assad, like those in Khan Sheikhoun, fail to shake leftist sensibilities. Indeed, it is hard to see how the popular mantra “Hands off Syria” is anything but a bland euphemism for “Hands off Assad.”

If the recent rapprochement between the United States and Russia is a reminder of anything, it is that, whether in times of agreement or disagreement between the two countries over Syria, civilian casualties will continue to mount. Antiwar coalitions seem not to understand that it is this, and not bombs dropped on Assad’s military bases, which deserves worldwide, “emergency protests.
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https://muftah.org/antiwar-coalitio...esume-coordinated-strikes-syria/#.WRnkSOvyiM-

Pro-Freedom · May 15, 2017

Genocidal tyrant slaughters, gases and burns the innocent, world draws meaningless "red lines", does deals with him and his backers, and slanders his victims...

Syria using crematorium to hide executions, State Department says

15-05-2017:..The Syrian government has constructed and is using a crematorium inside its notorious Sednaya military prison outside Damascus to clandestinely dispose of thousands of prisoners it continues to execute inside the facility, according to the State Department.

At least 50 prisoners a day are executed in the prison, some in mass hangings, said Stuart Jones, the acting assistant secretary of state for the Middle East. A recent Amnesty International report called Sednaya a “human slaughterhouse” and said that thousands of Syrians have been abducted, detained and “exterminated” there.

The government of President Bashar al-Assad, Jones said, has carried out these atrocities and others “seemingly with the unconditional support from Russia and Iran,” his main backers.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/worl....html?tid=pm_world_pop&utm_term=.6ede8d691817

Pro-Freedom · May 18, 2017

The war crimes of the Obama era.

Syrian Atrocities Cannot Go Ignored

16-05-2017:...It’s perhaps no surprise that Bashar al-Assad “practiced extrajudicial mass executions,” as Acting Assistant Secretary for Near Eastern Affairs Stuart Jones revealed. But the scale of those executions was previously unknown.

“Since 2012, the regime has routinely conducted airstrikes and artillery strikes in dense urban centers, including with barrel bombs, improvised unguided bombs, which are sometimes described as air-dropped IED,” he noted. “The Assad regime systemically targeted eastern Aleppo’s hospitals in multiple strikes, killing patients and medical professionals.”

From 2011 to 2015, the regime abducted between 65,000 and 117,000 people and executed thousands of prisoners without trial in Saydnaya Prison on the outskirts of Damascus. “We now believe that the Syrian regime has installed a crematorium in the Saydnaya prison complex which could dispose of detainees’ remains with little evidence,” Jones said. He revealed that the practice of incinerating the victims of Assad’s industrialized murder factory began in 2013 and he supplied photographs to prove it.

What’s galling about the Obama administration’s efforts to burnish its own record by attacking their successors isn’t just that President Obama balked at the opportunity to attack the Assad regime when it might have made a difference. It is that they did their best to ignore these systemic abuses of human rights not out of cowardice but a myopic desire to achieve a greater end: the nuclear accords with Iran.

“These atrocities have been carried out seemingly with the unconditional support from Russia and Iran,” Jones declared, as though that’s a surprise to anyone. The Iranian regime began introducing regular troops into Syria as early as 2012. Before Russia intervened militarily on Assad’s behalf, Moscow was providing material support and diplomatic cover for the criminal regime in Damascus. Russia aided in the cutting off of rebel centers, forcing choked off civilians to make horrible choices. The months-long siege of Aleppo, for example, forced civilians to “turn to extremists for help, or starve,” the New York Times reported. This was the culmination of Russia’s strategy to bomb hospitals, schools, and civilian infrastructure to rubble—compelling anti-Assad rebels to lose both hope at home and credibility abroad.

The Obama White House presided stoically over all of this. The former president has defended his decision not to intervene in the conflict as one of the proudest achievements of his political career. It was that contorted, self-deluded logic that led his State Department and Secretary of State John Kerry to pursue ill-fated ceasefire arrangements brokered by Moscow, knowing they would fail. “What’s the alternative?” he asked sheepishly.
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https://www.commentarymagazine.com/foreign-policy/middle-east/syria/syria-war-crimes-obama-era/

Pro-Freedom · May 18, 2017

Syrians of all faiths rose up for freedom together, and will one day rebuild a Syria for all its people, free from the poison of the Assads' tyranny or any other.

How Does the Assad Regime Use Syria's Christians to Incite Sectarianism?

16-05-2017:...It is notable that the oldest Christian political prisoner in the Syrian intelligence prisons is Malaki Yousef Kouria from Hassakeh, who was captured by a Syrian intelligence patrol in Lebanon in 1978 according to the Assyrian Network for Human Rights. Kouria is still being held without trial and will likely spend his life in prison. The Assyrian Network noted in one of its reports that “Assyrian-Syriac prisoners are among the longest serving prisoners in Syria, and they have been arrested and captured by intelligence agencies and imprisoned without trial in violation of the Syrian constitution and international human rights law,” including Yacoub Hana Shmaoun, who has been imprisoned since 1985, and Fahmi Zaya Nanou, who has been imprisoned since 1991.

Christians as individuals have not been the only ones harmed, as their houses of worship and churches have been hit by Assad shelling across Syrian territory. According to a 2014 report issued by the Syrian Network for Human Rights, the Assad regime has struck 46 churches in several regions of Syria with direct bombardment, most prominently the Umm al-Zanar church in Homs and the Al-Qadisa Teqla church which was hit by bombing in Daraya and the Al-Azra church in Harasta.

As usual the regime has worked to inflame sectarian tensions among the communities of the Syrian people through the use of Christian houses of worship as military centers to bombard neighboring areas, according to the same report by the Syrian Network for Human Rights. These include the Cherubim Cathedral Church in Sednaya in the Damascus countryside, the new church in Jisr al-Shughour, the Latin Church in Deir-ez-Zor and the Umm Sharshouh Church in the northern Homs countryside, as well as the St. George Monastery in Hama's Maharda and the Wartan Monastery in the Midan district of Aleppo.

The Assad regime’s repression of Christian activists has not discouraged their participation in the Syrian revolution from the beginning, and a large number of Christian activists have become involved in the revolution in different Syrian provinces and participated in the activities of the peaceful movement and demonstrations despite the Christian sect being split between supporters and opponents of the revolution, like other Syrian communities.
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http://syrianobserver.com/EN/Featur...gime_Use_Syria_Christians_Incite_Sectarianism

Pro-Freedom · May 18, 2017

The poisonous 'peace process' is an insult to Syrians

17-05-2017:...To demand that Syrians somehow come to "peaceful" terms with a rump state, backed by the cruel imperialism of Iran and Russia, that has for the past six years re-shaped itself from a tyrannical governing entity to one concerned only with active extermination of any Syrian that dares to claim autonomy, is an obscenity.

This is the poison that the so-called "peace process" in Geneva is spiked with. It's why both the Syrian opposition and the Assad regime can openly say that neither have any faith in Geneva. The opposition know that de Mistura won't demand the removal of Assad as a precondition for any potential peace, while the Assad regime has absolutely no incentive to negotiate a lasting peace – if Assad remains militarily superior with the unconditional backing of Russia and Iran, the "diplomacy" will reflect such imbalanced power relations.
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https://www.alaraby.co.uk/english/c...isonous-peace-process-is-an-insult-to-syrians

Pro-Freedom · May 20, 2017

This young boy, who has endured what nobody ever should, has more courage in any one hair on his head than Obama, Assad, Khamenei, Putin and all the other genocide accomplices

https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=2759469940742714

Pro-Freedom · May 20, 2017

Eyewitness Supports Claims of Detainee Executions by Syrian Intelligence

in the courtyard of the regime security headquarters.

The former detainee, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said members of the notorious Palestine intelligence department would bury the bodies of tortured detainees in the courtyard of the division’s headquarters south of Damascus.

"During detention I never dared to speak up or to tell anybody over fears of reprisals and inevitable death," the woman said.

The issue of Syrian detainees resurfaced on Monday when the U.S. said its satellite images supported claims claims by rights groups that the Assad regime is executing prisoners and incinerating their bodies in Sednaya Prison.

Thousands of prisoners are held at the military-run complex, which lies 30 kilometers north of the capital. The facility is one of Syria's largest detention centers.

Amnesty International has accused Syria's government of carrying out a "policy of extermination" at Sednaya by repeatedly torturing detainees and withholding food, water and medical care.

In February, it said Syria's government had killed up to 13,000 people over five years in gruesome weekly hangings.
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http://syrianobserver.com/EN/News/3...laims_Detainee_Executions_Syrian_Intelligence

Pro-Freedom · May 20, 2017

Mani · May 25, 2017

I wonder what our American friends here think of this:

US army and Al-Qaeda affiliated jihadists together at Tanf border crossing in Syria pic.twitter.com/08y2aJ0QtM
— The'Nimr'Tiger (@Souria4Syrians) May 24, 2017

Mani · May 25, 2017

Obama's Legacy = Unleashing and empowering dangerous Wahhabi and Muslim Brotherhood-variety jihadist sickos in Middle East. The same type of sick twisted animals who take joy in murdering innocent little girls at concerts.

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Pro-Freedom · May 28, 2017

Pro-Freedom · May 28, 2017

Five years ago on May 25 2012, Assad's terrorist militias, supported by Hezbollat terrorist mercenaries, slaughtered 108 civilians, including 55 children and infants, in the village of Houla in Homs province. The murderers used guns, knives and machetes to slaughter the people, as well as smashing some of the children's heads off rocks to kill them. To celebrate their "achievement", the killers also used knives to carve crude sectarian slogans and symbols into the faces of some of their child victims.This is only one of many massacres perpetrated by the regime and its accomplices.The world was silent then, as it still is now, continuing to support or simply to deny the monstrous crimes against humanity of the Assad regime and its accomplices.

WARNING: GRAPHIC VIDEO

Pro-Freedom · May 28, 2017

Syria’s Assad is ‘inextricably connected’ to Islamic State

15-04-2017: President Assad of Syria, who denies using chemical weapons against his own people, and Islamic State are ‘inextricably connected’, according to a top US senator.

Former presidential candidate John McCain has called for greater military action in Syria following President Trump’s airstrike U-turn.

Peace in Syria can only be achieved if Assad leave office, claim both men, who sit on the Senate Armed Services Committee.

http://metro.co.uk/2017/04/15/syria...ected-to-islamic-state-6576854/#ixzz4i2t3up9W

Pro-Freedom · May 28, 2017

Same terror, same horror, same sponsors in Damascus and Tehran. And some of the same great people working to save lives.

'I saw the same wounds in Aleppo': Syrian doctor saving Manchester lives

23-05-2017:...Describing the challenges of operating under the threat of air strikes in Syria, Hakimi said: "In Syria you wouldn’t have much time and we would have to use sedation as a light form of anaesthetic.

"In Manchester I’ve got until tomorrow to operate and I have advanced technology. The patient will have a general anaesthetic."

He added that British hospitals were well equipped to deal with mass casualty attacks and that he had been training doctors in Syria to deal with major incidents based on the NHS model.

A hospital Syria Relief supports in Idlib was bombed in a Syrian government air strike last month.

As recently as January this year Hakimi was in Syria operating on casualties who had been evacuated from rebel-held eastern Aleppo as part of a deal which saw the city returned to Syrian regime control after months of air strikes.

The Syria Relief website describes how Hakimi and another British surgeon, David Nott, operated on an injured five-month-old orphan whose arms and legs had been shattered in shelling which killed her parents.

http://www.middleeasteye.net/news/manchester-surgeon-ive-treated-same-wound-syria-229533239

Pro-Freedom · May 29, 2017

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Pro-Freedom · May 29, 2017

The past 24 hours in #Syria's "De-Escalation Zones" ...
Bombed by #AssadPutin whenever they feel the need for it.https://t.co/d4kgfmNmNo pic.twitter.com/GkxAx7WziE
— Julian Röpcke🇺🇦 (@JulianRoepcke) May 28, 2017

Pro-Freedom · May 29, 2017

Assad’s Industrial Killing Machine

The State Department’s revelation of Assad’s industrial killing process coincided with comments from former President Obama, extolling his own courage in deciding not to strike Syria in 2013 following Assad’s chemical weapons attacks against civilians. The timing of Obama’s self-congratulation is apt. “’Never again’ is more than an empty slogan,” Obama said in 2012. Then, for the next four years, he courageously watched as the client of his Iranian regional partner perpetrated mass murder on an industrial scale.

Throughout the six years of the war, Obama consistently conveyed a message that Syria was someone else’s sectarian religious war, drawing on grievances that date back centuries. There are no good guys in Syria, the White House talking point went. Bad and worse are simply killing each other, and wisdom consists of resisting the urge to take sides. What this messaging did was trivialize industrial-scale slaughter perpetrated by a government backed by two other governments: Russia and Iran.

Instead, the Obama Administration found ISIS to be a more useful enemy. “ISIS is the face of evil,” Obama said following the Paris attacks in November 2015. His Secretary of State John Kerry added that ISIS was “the order of Satan,” while Obama urged “everyone to focus on destroying ISIS”—he wrote to Iran’s Supreme Leader promising not to touch Assad.

Obama’s decision to obscure the Assad regime’s industrial killing machine cloaked itself in a phony language of humanitarianism. Our objective in Syria was to “de-escalate the conflict,” to “stop the violence,” and to “end the war” with a “political settlement,” so that everyone could focus on ISIS. Much like the “there are no good guys” line, this language, too, muddied the waters more than anything else. The fact remains that, in Syria, there is no one that comes close to the level and scale of Assad’s industrial killing process. ISIS barely rates a mention.

As the revelations about Assad’s prison system demonstrate, “ending the war” does not address the machinery of death in the regime’s dungeons. The unspeakable horror of the Assad prison system is a longstanding tradition of the Assad family, dating back to Bashar’s father. A recent translation of one numbing Syrian prison memoir captures the brutality of the notorious Tadmor prison in the days of Assad Sr.

But Bashar has managed to surpass his father. You will not find descriptions of crematoria to dispose of thousands of dead detainees in Syrian prison literature. That picture conjures another event in history.
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http://www.tabletmag.com/scroll/234256/assads-industrial-killing-machine

Iranian Monitor · May 30, 2017

Trump was always a pig and a fraud, but this article points to how ultimately nothing much has changed about US policy in Syria or anywhere else for that matter. In Syria, after a short pause, America is back arming and funding the same jihadists groups which run under various "rebel" brands. In fact, the US is almost openly trying to prevent the Syrian army clearing ISIS from the area bordering Iraq, the same way the US isn't at all pleased to see Iraqi forces clear ISIS from areas which link ISIS forces to Syria. Sure, if the Americans can find a more marketable brand than ISIS do their bidding, they would be happy. But their focus was never and has never been about terrorism or anything of the sort. In fact, the US and its sidekicks, Wahhabi Arabia and Israel, are the biggest sponsors and supporters of terrorism in the region.

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/05/syrian-rebels-sends-arms-iran-threat-170531014459877.html
Syrian rebels: US sends more arms against Iran threat
Stakes are high as Iran seeks to secure influence through Iraq, Syria and Lebanon in so-called 'Shia crescent'.

Pro-Freedom · Jun 1, 2017

Like free Syrians across the country, the people of Douma have endured crippling starvation siege and daily bombing by Assad's and his accomplices' air and ground forces since 2013. Their only "crime" is to call for an end to a genocidal hereditary dictatorship and demand the freedom, dignity and human rights that are every human being's birthright, according to the UN's Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Syria's Douma struggles to survive

Douma has been under siege by President Bashar al-Assad's forces since October 2013. Air and ground attacks have caused extensive damage to the town. Firas Abdullah reports on life in Douma.

http://www.dw.com/en/syrias-douma-struggles-to-survive/g-38965149?maca=en-Facebook-sharing

Pro-Freedom · Jun 1, 2017

Obama's 'legacy deal'

How much is Iran paying for Assad's foreign fighters?

01-06-2017: The Syrian regime's Defence Ministry has approved a plan to give Iran responsibility to fund foreign fighters fighting against opposition forces in Syria, according to regime document obtained by Zaman Al Wasel, pro-opposition news website, VOA News reported on Friday.

“The number of Shia militia has increased dramatically during the last two months,” the official said in the report. “While a big part of these militia were recruited by Iran, a relatively big part was recruited by the Syrian government directly. We are speaking about more than 50,000 militants from different nationalities. The Syrian government requested that Iran provide for all of the mentioned militias.”

The government document states that 88,733 foreign fighters must be paid, but that is an estimate on the high side, according to the report. The number may be closer to 50,000 foreign fighters.

Tehran spends $6 billion per year on military aid to the Assad regime, according to the UN. Iran's 2017 defence budget increased by 90 percent from 2016, up to $19 billion. And at least 10,000 Iranian soldiers are currently fighting on the ground in Syria.

Iran will now fund these foreign militia groups fighting for Syria's Assad regime:

Syrian

Public Support & Security Forces
Homeland Fortress Forces
Arab National Guards
Hussein Lions Brigade
Homeland Shield Forces
Saladin al Ayoubi Brigade
National Defence Forces
Coastal Shield Brigade
Syrian Jazeera Shield
Desert Hawks
Jablowi Batallion
Scorpion Brigade
Syriac Protection Office
Homeland Shield Brigade
Imam Mehdi Army
Anger Forces
Syrian Resistance
Lebanese

Hezbollah
Saraya al Ghalboun
Harakat al Saaberine
Syrian - Lebanese

Tornado Eagles
Imam al Baqer Brigade
Palestinian

Al Jaleel Palestinian Forces
Palestinian Liberation Army
Al Baathj Battalions
Intifada Conquest
Vanguard for the Popular Liberation War
Palestinian Popular Struggle Front
Liberation and Return Saraya
Syrian - Palestinian

Al Quds Brigade
Yemeni

Ansar Allah
Bahraini

Saraya al Mukhtar
Pakistani

Zeynabioun Brigade
Iraqi

Bader Corps
Al Zahra Saraya
Khorasan Saraya
Truthful Brigade
Hezbollah al Iraqi
Saraya Ashura
Saraya al Salam
Saraya al Jihad
Imam Ali Brigade
Dhu al Fuqar Brigade
Promised Day Brigade
Hasan al Mujtaba Brigade
Popular Defence Saraya
Faithful Promise Corps
Hezbollah Battalions
Amar bin Yasser Brigade
Al Hamad Brigade
Imam Mehdi Army
Asaib Ahal al Haq
Imam Hussein Brigade
Al Nujba Movement
Rasali Youth Brigade
Abu al Fadi al Abbas Brigade
Master of Martyrs Batallion
Brigade of Victorious Great Lions
Awaiting the Mehdi Appearance Battalions
Afghan

Fatamiyoun Brigade
Afghani Hezbollah
Iranian

Al Quds Force
Iranian 65th Brigade
Basij Forces
Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps
Nakhsa Forces.'
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http://www.trtworld.com/mea/how-much-is-iran-paying-for-assads-foreign-fighters-368090

Pro-Freedom · Jun 1, 2017

Assad's internationally assisted Nakba continues, with help from all the world's powers, and Daesh providing a useful figleaf.
U.S. Helps Drive 200,000 Syrians From Their Homes

01-05-2017: ...After U.S. bombing ousts ISIS militants from the villages they’ve occupied, the proxies on the ground set up by the U.S.—the [Assad-allied] Syrian Democratic Forces—enter the villages and order the mostly Arab population to leave at gunpoint. People say they are stripped of their identity cards and herded like livestock to a transit camp-The SDF, which has Arabs in its ranks but is dominated by Kurds, tells these internally displaced persons, or IDPs, as they are called in humanitarian jargon, that they can return to their homes if they find a local sponsor. Otherwise, their only option is to exit the region. Many arrive in Jarablus bearing only travel papers authorizing a one-way trip out of the Raqqa area within 24 hours

While this sounds like a Kurdish-led “ethnic cleansing,” the State Department says tens of thousands of Arabs returned to their homes in the early stages of the operation. But the SDF’s current practice of requiring a sponsor and seizing IDP identity papers appears to be a breach of International Humanitarian Law, officials say.

Jarablus is a border town captured in the Turkish-backed Operation Euphrates Shield last August. It’s a magnet for IDPs from all of northern Syria because it’s safe from bombing by the Assad regime and Russia, thanks to Turkey’s military presence. Some 5,000 IDPs from Raqqa are living in Jarablus alone, and another 5,000 are scattered across the 810 square miles Turkey controls, many living in tents set up by the side of the road, local officials said.

“They [the SDF] told us, ‘You can go anywhere you want, but not to our areas,’” said Khiro Abdullah Aboud, 34, who arrived in the Turkish-controlled zone with his wife and five children early in May.
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http://www.thedailybeast.com/us-helps-drive-200000-syrians-from-their-homes

Pro-Freedom · Jun 1, 2017

While the Assad supporter have been cheering on the ongoing Nakba perpetrated by Assad, Putin and Khamenei with international support for six years to date, heroic free Syrian journalists and activists have never stopped risking and too often giving their lives to stand for freedom and to document the reality.

War Through Syrian Eyes

30-05-2017: 'According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, of the at least 101 journalists who have been killed there since 2011, 88% were local and 27% were classified as photographers. Many others have been intimidated, abducted, maimed or forced into exile. Foreigners who venture in stick to the Kurdish-controlled territory in the north or are allowed access to government-controlled areas. But the majority of pictures that emerge, especially in opposition-held areas, are from Syrians themselves. Activist media networks tweet pictures of the latest carnage, hoping to reach change-makers. Doctors and nurses send reporters unpublishable images of the latest tragedies to unravel in their emergency rooms using tools like WhatsApp. And much of the imagery that appears in online news, in print and on television is shot by local stringers with international agencies, some working under pseudonyms due to safety concerns. They are the last-ditch effort for independent eyes and ears on the ground.

Here, nine Syrian photographers share an image of theirs that moved them most. In their own words—lightly edited for clarity and brevity—they describe the context and personal significance of each picture.

One image shows the dusty chaos after an airstrike. Another shows a rescuer with the Syrian Civil Defense, known as the White Helmets, working to free a man trapped in the rubble. His blood-covered face is directed toward the camera. Another image illustrates the eerie calm of playtime during a brief truce. Viewed separately, they offer a glimpse at daily life in pockets of this war. Taken together, they speak to the tragedies that unfold every day, the heroism that emerges, the humanity that somehow remains.
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http://time.com/war-through-syrian-eyes/

Pro-Freedom · Jun 2, 2017

Free Syrians continue to risk their lives to report the truth about Syria, while regime-embedded Western hacks are paid well to be PR agents for Assad's genocide.

An exiled Syrian journalist tells us what it was like to write under Assad

29-05-2017:..As a Syrian Christian, Khoury was also pushing back against Assad's insistence that he was helping protect the country's religious minorities. Khoury said he has been unable to separate his anti-Assad activism from his journalistic work. He sees his role as standing up for those the government tries to repress.

After several months of reporting from the protests in Latakia, a group of agents stopped Khoury and a group of other reporters while they were driving in a car. The agents cornered Khoury and beat him up. He was hospitalized and had to get several surgeries to fix broken ribs.

As Syria launched into a full-blown civil war and the situation continued to deteriorate, Khoury left his home for Lebanon and continued publishing anti-Assad articles there. The Lebanese government shielded Khoury for more than a year, but eventually seized his passport because, Khoury believes, they didn't want to anger Assad's regime.

By that time, Khoury could not stay in either Syria and Lebanon and, after retrieving his passport from some people he knew in the government, sought asylum in New York.

Once there, he spent a year as a journalist in residence at the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism, and continued to publish material about the situation in Syria sent to him from journalists still on the ground. During his three years in the US, Khoury would try to send these reports to American newspapers but felt that most were either uninterested or wanted to publish the stories for free — something he refuses to do.

"They should give money to those people," said Khoury, adding that journalists still in Syria face daily dangers, both from Assad's regime and Islamic terrorist groups who tried to capitalize on the war by taking over swathes of Syria.
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http://uk.businessinsider.com/syria...reporting-under-assad-regime-2017-5?r=US&IR=T

Pro-Freedom · Jun 2, 2017

Russia, the Assads and their accomplices have been persecuting and dispossessing Chechens for a very long time.

The Chechens of Ras al-Ain: Expelled by Russia, Pursued by the Regime, Shamed by the YPG

02-06-2017: In the year 1864, after the Russians conquered the Caucasus, many residents of the area were displaced to several countries, with various Syrian cities receiving a share of these migrants. These included about 500 families who were displaced to the Syrian city of Ras al-Ain, where from the beginning they held power and prestige throughout the period of Ottoman rule, the French mandate, and independence. However, since the ‘60s, facing repression under Baath rule and the spread of epidemics, their numbers today in Ras al-Ain reach just 70 families.

Chechen elders in the city quote their fathers as saying that their journey lasted two years on foot, including a large number of children, women and elderly protected by horsemen, while their possessions were transported by oxen-drawn carts.

After a difficult journey, they settled in an area which would later become the Khabur springs in Ras al-Ain. The Ottoman state granted the area from Ras al-Ain up to Mount Abdulaziz to the Chechens, as there were no urban population concentrations there at the time. The newly displaced people built mud homes on the banks of the Khabur River and its springs, and this area remained their property, until the agricultural reform law ensured its distribution to the peasants, leaving only a limited section for the Chechen families who still inhabit the cities of Ras al-Ain, Hassakeh, Qamishli and the villages of Al-Safah, Tal Sanan, Al-Masjid, Majaibra and Tel Dhieb.

...Regarding the role of Chechens in the Syrian revolution, Saad Eddin, who spent 20 years in the notorious Palmyra prison, said: “We were proactive in participating in the demonstrations which began in Ras al-Ain in April 2011 with the Kurdish youths who answered Daraa’s call, which led to Chechen youths being hunted down and arrested.”

Chechen youths became involved in military action with the beginning of the operation to liberate Ras al-Ain until the city fell fully under the control of the People’s Protection Units (YPG), the military wing of the Democratic Union Party, which seized the property of those who had joined the revolution from among its residents after expelling about 40 Chechen families and seizing their homes.

The number of Chechens in Ras al-Ain today is about 3,000, including those who are in the city’s countryside and own farmlands, while some have sold their land and headed toward the city to find stability and work in various fields as doctors, pharmacists and teachers.
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http://syrianobserver.com/EN/Featur...lled_Russia_Pursued_the_Regime_Shamed_the_YPG