There is no country deadlier for journalists than Syria. Since the beginning of the civil war in 2011, 103 reporters, filmmakers and editors have been confirmed dead. For foreign correspondents and locals, Syria is toxic. Besides the dangers of working in regions that are regularly bombed, the so-called Islamic State, or Isis, has frequently targeted journalists, sometimes kidnapping and executing them.
In December last year, 38-year-old Naji Jerf was shot with a silenced pistol in Turkey, close to the Syrian border. He was just one of several journalists working for the group Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently (RBSS). A few months earlier, another – also in Turkey – was beheaded. More than half a million people keep up to date with the group’s reports via its main Facebook page, and it also has nearly 70,000 followers on Twitter.
But RBSS journalists are working in even more dangerous places than the border towns. The group currently has 17 reporters based in the northern Syrian city of Raqqa, Isis' stronghold. Its journalists there are all working undercover, using false names and communicating with RBSS editors using encrypted channels.
RBSS spokesman Abdalaziz Alhamza says the group is in touch with them “on a daily basis” but Isis has worked hard to frustrate operations. “They started putting security cameras all over the city,” explains Alhamza. “They established many rules [such as] it’s not allowed for anyone to take any photos. All those things made the work a lot harder than before.” Meanwhile, life for civilians in the city remains desperate. “The situation is horrible,” he adds.
While details continue to drip out of the ravaged town, Alhamza says RBSS needs to be selective about what photographs and videos it publishes online, in order to protect the identities of those who have supplied them. Sometimes a month will pass with no updates, just to be safe.
Despite the difficulties and risks, Alhamza believes RBSS’s work has helped to persuade outsiders against joining Isis, or carrying out attacks in the name of the terrorist group. “To see citizens or local people were fighting Isis, it helped a lot,” he says. And RBSS’s work has not gone unnoticed. The organisation has been awarded prizes by the Committee to Protect Journalists and the Swedish section of Reporters Without Borders.
RBSS is primarily concerned with drawing attention to the atrocities perpetrated by Isis. But elsewhere in Syria, civilians have got caught up in reporting on the conflict for a variety of reasons. One, Malek Blacktoviche, has closely followed the activities of rebels fighting to take control of areas such as Aleppo, currently contested by the Syrian national army.
Blacktoviche was a software developer when the civil war began and says he's worked for several companies in Aleppo. He describes the Assad regime as a “dictatorship” and soon began to follow the activities of Syrian revolutionaries after demonstrations in 2011. He has contributed to reporting for foreign organisations, including NBC in the US.
“I help foreign journalists covering what is happening here because the world seems blind to what is going on,” he explains. Blacktoviche describes the insurgents as “our brave, beloved rebels” on his Twitter account. But some rebels’ actions have, on occasion, been criticised by observers. A recent campaign in Aleppo could amount to “war crimes”, according to the UN’s envoy in Syria – an assessment that has been strongly denied by the rebels. “We do not trust UN,” said Blacktoviche, claiming the rebels are innocent.
The situation is complicated. All parties involved in the conflict have, at times, been accused by the UN of committing war crimes. Nation states have also denounced each other’s strategies in the region.
“It is nearly impossible for anyone inside Syria to cover the war with distance and impartiality,” notes Alexandra El Khazen, a spokeswoman for Reporters Without Borders. “Citizen journalists in Syria do not have the same access to information, each has [his or her] own reality. They depend on the local group who controls the territory they work in.”
Besides that, anyone reporting in isolation from the front lines of a battle, for example, will likely have their view restricted by their circumstances, she adds. “You don’t always have other information that contradicts or balances yours.”
Some organisations have an explicit commitment to neutrality, however. The Red Cross, a charity, is one and is responsible for delivering aid to conflict zones. A subdivision, the Syrian Arab Red Crescent, manages a network of Facebook pages, Instagram and Twitter feeds that act as a means of keeping locals and international observers informed.
Its Facebook pages alone, manned by volunteers performing a citizen journalist-like role, have an audience of more than half a million people. They publish information both about the conflict and more practical things – such as how to spot infections like Leishmaniasis, which is spread by sand flies.
But communications in Syria are not always reliable. One Red Crescent outpost in rural Damascus went quiet for months, leaving the main branch without any indication of what had happened to volunteers in the area. “Out of the blue, after 18 months of hardly hearing anything they suddenly got a fax from them saying, ‘We are still here, we are still working’,” explains spokeswoman Penny Sims. A sister branch was later able to deliver much-needed relief.
Using American social media sites to report on a bloody and complicated conflict in the Middle East is not always straightforward. Facebook, for instance, has been criticised in the past for deleting content drawing attention to violence in Syria.
“We sometimes get things wrong and when we do, we apologise,” a spokesperson for Facebook said. “We’re constantly working to make sure our platform is a place anyone can share what matters to them – a place that’s as diverse and representative as the people who use it and the world it reflects. We have to figure out how to both give people a voice and also counter hatred.”
For Alhamza at RBSS, however, the way big social networks scrutinise content has not been too great a hindrance. He says the group simply uploads any graphic material elsewhere and links to it on mainstream social network sites, with suitable warnings.
Alhamza does claim that his group’s reports deserve a higher level of attention in the foreign press. He argues the difficulty comes largely from the language barrier. Content published by groups like RBSS, especially via smaller social media accounts reporting on local areas in Syria, is usually in Arabic. “They don’t [find] these videos because they are trying to search in English,” he says. “They don’t have enough Arabic speakers.”
Besides the very real physical threat to anyone involved with RBSS, there also remains the simple fact that keeping such an operation going is not cheap. One funding source that backed RBSS began in January last year but ended after 12 months. The group is currently seeking new support.
Alhamza stresses his conviction, though, that his journalists will continue reporting, no matter what. “With or without funding,” he says, “we have decided not to stop the work.”
Abdalaziz Alhamza spoke at last year's WIRED2016 conference.
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This article was originally published by WIRED UK
