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Syrian Ministry of Information – Official Communiqué

Syrian Ministry of Information – Official Communiqué – November 2012

The Ministry of Information of the Syrian Arab Republic has issued an official communiqé about the crisis in Syria as it is perceived by the Syrian government. 

Due to the fact that Syrian Radio and TV signals have been illegally blocked from the satellites of Arabsat and Nilesat, 

due to the fact that access to websites of Syrian Press Agencies and media on the internet, such as the website of the Syrian Arab News Agency SANA have been blocked in most western and Arab nations which are hostile to the government de jure of the Syrian Arab Republic, 

due to the fact that journalists who report according to the ethical standards of journalism and journalists who refuse to let themselves be intimidated and threatened into following the dictates of Salafist terrorist groups are systematically threatened, kidnapped, tortured and murdered, 

and due to the fact that a exchange of information from all sides of any conflict is one of the most important preconditions for the forming of informed political opinion and for conflict resolution, I find it incumbent upon myself to publish the full text of this communiqué on nsnbc.



Christof Lehmann – nsnbc editor.

The link to the Pdf file is below:

http://nsnbc.files.wordpress.com/2012/11/ministry-of-information-syrian-arab-republic.pdf
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SYRIAN ARAB REPUBLIC - MINISTRY OF INFORMATION
Page 1

The Ministry of Information in the Syrian Arab Republic extends to your

Excellency all esteem and respect, while it encloses with this letter its

informational message concerning the events in Syria for clarifying the

reality of what is going on, and not what is falsely and untruly presented by

certain media for achieving goals that have become well-known, a matter

that has made such media, under legal and political concepts, an

accomplice in the crimes committed against the Syrian state and the Syrian

citizens.

The Ministry of Information in Syria, in cooperation with regional and

international organizations, is seeking to document that through all

different documentation means and tools, and it will supplement its

message with a copy of the film-documents collected under the supervision

of a committee of activists specialized in the field of human rights and

information.

We hope to circulate our present message over those concerned in the

career of information, press and television and workers in the diplomatic

corps to enable them all to have a true and realistic reading of the scene,

away from lies, fabrication and falsification.

With thanks and esteem.

Ministry of Information

*

Starting from joint legal and moral responsibility of shouldering the sublime

message of information embodied in professionally and objectively

transferring truth to the public opinion away from the unilateral vision

associated with political agendas, and strongly believing in the importance of

working together as media institutions which work is regulated by media

honor charter and the ethics of profession for a subjective information

oriented towards national and nationalistic issues realizing glory and dignity

of Arab people, rounding up their views and unifying their stances, it is

important to state that Syria, since the beginning of the crisis it is passing

through, is subject to a major media misleading campaign assumed by both

Arab and foreign information media that have dedicated themselves as an

information arm for the armed terrorist groups covering up their terrorist

attacks against the Syrian people, both civilians and soldiers, and coordinating

with them in fabricating and photographing massacres committed by those

armed groups against Syrian citizens with a view to accusing the Syrian Arab

army, order-keeping forces and the government, without any consideration of

the circumstances, backgrounds and aims of committing such crimes, and to

whom interest and within what contexts they have been committed, only for

the purpose of defaming Syria and damaging its stances on Arab, regional and

international levels.

Despite Syria’s respect for its vows concerning the political process aiming at

ending the crisis, its persistence in finding a political outlet for it within the

framework of political multiplicity and under a comprehensive reform

program led by Syrians of all specters and slices, its acceptance of the

monitors’ mission sent by Arab League, and up to reaching an agreement on

the plan of the UN Envoy, Kofi Annan on 25 March 2012, such armed

terrorist groups have continued violating all political plans and endeavors

through resorting to terrorism and armed violence against the state, citizens,

members of the Syrian Arab army and the order-keeping forces; such

violations of the UN Envoy’s plan have exceeded 10600 breaches resulting in

hundreds of both civilian and military victims, not to mention the sabotage

operations causing damages of infrastructures, such as power nets, oil and gas

pipelines, hospitals and schools.

Even schools have not been survived by terrorists holding obscurant thought

supported by Gulf oil moneys and the faithless Turkish weapons: more than

1700 schools, with losses of about 500 million Syrian Pounds, have been

devastated, besides targeting the teaching staff that has lost 40 martyrs

murdered by the treacherous terrorism wanting to take Syrian citizens back to

the ages of ignorance and backwardness.

The health sector, rendering services to the Syrian citizen free of charge,

has not been saved from terrorism: hospitals as well as health centers have

been robbed, spoilt and burnt out, besides assaulting their medical cadres

performing their humanitarian duty. More than 38 hospitals and 132 health

centers have been attacked and damaged by armed terrorist groups, of

which 25 hospitals have been rehabilitated, and the losses of the health

sector have exceeded 3.5 billion Syrian Pounds. The same applies upon the

sector of electricity, oil and gas, a matter that has negative influences upon

the living conditions of the Syrian citizen and the provision of such

services supported by the state by billions of Syrian Pounds each year.

Meanwhile, the suspicious matter lies in the fact that the destructive attacks

against the service and infrastructure sectors by terrorists come concurrent

with the unjust economic sanctions imposed by Western countries and some

Arab states upon economic sectors taking care of securing the daily living

needs of the Syrian citizen, including heating fuel, domestic gas, and

medicines for some chronic diseases and other necessary needs, with negative

effects upon the citizen’s life and the ability to secure his needs, in an

endeavor to agitate the Syrian public opinion against its government and to

accuse the state of failing to provide such basic services for its citizens.

Nevertheless, the Syrian government is persistently keeping on securing such

needs and repairing damages inflicted upon the sectors of health and

education services, the electricity networks and transport of fuel and gas, in

addition to confronting the terrorism it is facing.

Yet, such huge amount of daily terror against Syria and its citizens has not

won the due interest of most Arab and international media; and in case of

dealing with it, they focus on its effect upon the collapse of the state, and not

upon the nature of such denounced destructive and criminal terrorist act, a

matter considered as an encouragement for further devastation and terror.

Any one pursuing this matter needs little contemplation to realize the duality

of criteria in the political and information dealing with what is happening in

Syria on one part, and the involvement of some Arab and Western media in

covering up the terror of the armed groups and their participation in shedding

more Syrian blood on the other. Recalling all massacres perpetrated in Syria,

we find them either concurrent with or preceding the meetings of the UN

Security Council, the General Assembly or the Human Rights Council on

Syria just for rallying the international society against our country and for

politically utilizing them for issuing extreme positions and condemnations

against it in the international circles. We have only to remember the dates of

those massacres and the international stances against Syria that followed them

to be sure of the contexts within which they have been committed and for

what purpose, and thus we can reason out the actual perpetrator.

Also the matter that attracts one’s attention is the prompt Western and Arab

condemnation of those massacres, especially by states and powers involved in

financing and arming terrorists, securing a safe haven for them and facilitating

their entry into the Syrian territories; and such statements are ready and

coordinated for accusing and condemning the Syrian state, and for moving

quickly to get a resolution issued against it under the Seventh Chapter and

thus opening the door for military intervention in its internal affairs, while the

same countries pass over the terrorist blasts committed by the terrorist groups

against the Syrian citizens and the infrastructures and service facilities

securing the daily living needs of the Syrian people. This fact raises questions

and actual doubts about the link between those states and their media and the

terror and sabotage Syria is witnessing.

What happened lately in Al-Traimseh village in Hama Countryside on

12.07.2012 and the cheap utilization of that event by the bloody information

media was a springboard for ready international positions, some of which

were hastily made without any real scrutiny into that event, but only

depending upon what was broadcast by channels sharing in shedding the

Syrian blood and channels inciting sedition and violence.

Such biased stations talked about using heavy weapons, tanks and helicopters

and killing about 250 civilians based upon questionable video sections that

lasted few seconds as broadcast by armed groups. But the international

political circles immediately adopted that story without any verification, while

the Syrian state had ascertained that only light weapons and RPG’s were used

in chasing terrorists and storming their dens, a matter that resulted in killing

37 terrorists and the death of two civilians, besides finding out large quantities

of weapons and ammunitions in the terrorists’ hideouts, ranging between

machineguns, RPG’s, automatic shotguns, hand-made rockets and explosives.

The UN Observer Mission visited Al-Traimseh village to check what had

happened and after examining the place it stated that clashes occurred

between the government forces and armed persons situated in the village, but

there was no massacre.

The most important question here is the following: Why do such media hasten

to speak about a supposed or fabricated massacre simultaneously with the

meeting of the Security Council considering extending the period of the UN

Observer Mission in Syria? Doesn’t that aim at pressuring the Council and

especially those countries that reject external intervention in Syria’s affairs

and trying to embarrass them? What is the benefit for the Syrian state from

committing such massacres under the sight of the UN observers and while the

Security Council is looking into the status of the Mission in Syria? All these

are questions needing no much scrutiny to reach their answers.


Al-Houla massacre in Homs Countryside on 25 May 2012 with dozens of

victims, children and women in particular, murdered in cold blood also

occurred just before a scheduled visit of the UN Envoy, Kofi Annan, to

Damascus on 29 May 2012. Some media and the external opposition rushed

to accuse the Syrian Arab Army of committing it through shelling the area

with heavy weapons and so the victims were killed by that shelling fire.

When it became established that most victims were killed through

liquidation operations from a near distance, they started to talk about

“Shabbiha” and other stories that did not withstand facts revealed later. The

conclusive evidence showed that terrorists committed that massacre when

they killed three or four peaceful pro-state families rejecting devastation, and

some of them belonged to the family of Abdul-Muti Meshleb, member of the

Syria People Assembly. Here one may reasonably ask: who is the

beneficiary and what is the aim of the massacre? The reason is certainly very

clear: it is deranging that visit of Annan and deviating the course of talks in a

direction servicing those planning to strike Syria.

As for Al-Qbeir massacre in Hama countryside committed on 06.06.2012

against civilians, including children and women, it was arranged and planned

by armed terrorist groups and their regional and international sponsors to

come just before a meeting of the Security Council on the situation in the

Middle East on 07.06.2012, and for exploiting the blood of Syrian to the

interest of Western political agendas.

The focus of the Western Media and political circles upon those massacres

while overlooking all the ugly terrorist operations and blasts committed by

terrorists against the Syrian people, besides targeting, devastating and burning

infrastructures, such as hospitals, schools and other service facilities, including

means of transporting fuel and gas and the electricity networks, is a

complicity in the crime and an encouragement for terrorists to go on

perpetrating that terror against the state and against the Syrian people for

whom those channels and states are pretending to shed tears, while they are

trading with their bloods and rights only for achieving political gains to the

special interest of those Arab, regional and Western countries.

Here we should stress the active role of some regional countries, especially

Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar, in smuggling, financing and arming Arab

and foreign armed persons to fight against the Syrian state under the slogan of

“Al-Jihad”. Some of them, bearing various nationalities- such as Libyans and

Tunisians- were arrested and they confessed how they entered the borders

through Turkey and how they got trained in training camps, besides getting

other kinds of support for such terrorists in Syria.

The daily events confirm the involvement of some neighboring countries in

the terror Syria is facing through securing a safe haven for armed terrorists,

providing them with training camps and financing and arming them under the

cover of hosting refugees. Such terrorist set out from those camps and launch

attacks against the border-regions in Syria, besides trying to sneak into those

borders. Each day, the Syrian border-guard forces deal with several trials of

those armed persons to penetrate and smuggle arms from Turkey in a manner

that simply denotes the existence of coordination between that country, or

through some political or security leaders in it, and the armed groups, in

addition to a lot of attempts of infiltration and smuggling arms from Lebanon

and Jordan. The border-guard forces in those countries have not prevented

many attempts of infiltration and smuggling arms into Syria, a matter that

forms a violation of the international law and the anti-terror world laws.

Does any state accept its neighboring countries to become centers for training

armed persons associated with Jihadist organizations adopting the ideology and

thought of Al-Qaeda, such as Al-Nosra Front which had acknowledged

carrying out several terrorist blasts in Damascus and Aleppo? (Al-Nosra Front

acknowledged carrying out the two blasts at Al-Qazzaz in Damascus on 11

May 2012 resulting in more than 55 martyrs and 300 casualties, the two blasts

at Al-Qassa’a and the Customs Circle in Damascus on 17 March 2012 resulting

in martyring 27 citizens, the blast at Al-Midan Quarter in Damascus on 27


April 2012 resulting in the death of 9 persons, and the two terrorist blasts in

Aleppo on 10 February 2012 resulting in martyring 28 citizens, besides

adopting blasting off the site of the Syrian Al-Ekhbariya Channel (Syria News)

near Damascus on 27 June 2012)? Doesn’t that form a kind of partnership with

terror which those same countries claim having fought it throughout years,

besides having waged wars and occupied countries, such as Iraq and

Afghanistan, under the slogan of fighting it?

Moreover, each day we see how some countries, such as Saudi Arabia, Qatar

and Turkey, backed by US and the EU countries, rush to legitimize the terror

Syria is facing in the international circles and platforms of the UN and the

General Assembly; thus, Saudi Arabia presented a draft resolution on 3

August 2012, under Clause 34 of the General Assembly Charter on

preventing the outbreak of armed conflicts, a matter that forms a clear

contradiction between what those countries are practicing, secretly and in

public, in kindling the crisis in Syria and transforming it into an armed

conflict, through financing and arming the armed terrorist groups, and their

claims in putting forth that resolution. We much regret that those countries,

through misleading and the lies practiced by its media, have been able to

pass the draft resolution in the General Assembly, a matter forming a

violation of the principle of the sovereignty of countries for which the

international organization was created to defend, besides transforming the

UN General Assembly, under the political, financial and information

pressure of those countries, into a cover for spreading the terror culture in the

world and wrecking stability and security in it.

The terror Aleppo is recently facing and the plans laid for it by regional and

Western countries truly unmask those pretending concern and interest in

pretending the Syrian people and their rights, and that comes within the

political context adopted by anti-Syria countries. Thus, Aleppo is being

punished today for its non-uprising against the state, and for that purpose

thousands of armed persons, terrorists and Jihadists of all different countries

of the world have been massed across the Turkish borders and supplied with

advanced and heavy weapons- as stated by the spokeswoman of the UN

Observer Mission, Sawsan Ghosheh, who has admitted that the “armed

opposition” has heavy weapons in Aleppo- for striking the Syrian state and

creating a pretext for external military intervention in it, as those countries

have already consumed up all their internal tools in the face of the Syrian

people’s determination to preserve their state and reject the culture of ravage,

murder and terror.

Despite revealing and disproving a lot of the information fabrications made

by armed groups about false shelling operations or even about committing

massacres- the method of fabricating and devising such events against the

state and the Syrian Arab army has been later revealed through details and

real photos derived from cameras of those armed persons, those information

channels and their sponsors keep on practicing information misleading,

sectarian instigation and calls for killing, especially targeting the Syrian

media workers doing their jobs in the state media.

All remember the story of the young Syrian, Zeinab Al-Hosni, reported

murdered by those biased media that bade farewell to her and specified pages

for her on the social communication sites, thus making her a symbol of those

calling for freedom. Later and by concrete evidence, that Zeinab appeared alive

on the information media telling how she had run away from the cruelty and

oppression of her brothers. We also remember the story of the child, Sari

Saoud, and the famous video section showing his mother embracing him while

passing away after being shot dead by terrorists who photographed that scene

and claimed that the Syrian Arab army did that. Later and as proved by his own

mother’s sayings, the terrorists themselves killed her child and photographed

her while crying out in grief for him. Such fabricated stories are not everything

in the sphere of information misleading adopted by the channels of sedition and

terror; rather, they are only samples sufficing anyone resorting to sound reason

and insight to take a stand for history.

Recalling the story of the French reporter, Gilles Jacquier, working for France

2 TV, who was killed by a mortar shell fired by armed terrorist groups on

media teams while making a field tour in Homs city on 11 January 2012,

we remember how the Arab and Western media and their political sponsors

in France rushed to accuse the Syrian state and the Syrian Arab army of

killing him, despite the fact that the initiative of the Syrian government to

form an inquiry committee with the participation of a representative from

France 2 TV where Jacquier was working. Neither that channel sent its

representative, nor the French government wanted to reveal the truth about

his death; the French President then, Nicolas Sarkozy, only was interested

in utilizing that crime for making more international pressure upon Syria.

The report of the Arab monitor’s mission confirmed that Jacquier was

killed by the “armed opposition”, and that was reconfirmed by the French

Le Figaro which stated, according to sources in the French Ministry of

Defense, that intelligence information and the study of the motion of the

shell that killed Jacquier showed that it was fired from an area where the

“armed opposition” was based.

Targeting intellectual and human qualified persons, such as media-persons,

university teachers, physicians and enlightened religious scholars, is part of

the nature of armed terrorist groups that adopt the obscurant Al-Qaeda thought

which refuses others, whether a native living in the same homeland or a

foreigner living far away, only for being intellectually disaccord. Those armed

terrorist groups have killed a lot of physicians, university teachers,

enlightened religious scholars and creative Syrians; yet, such criminal acts

have not affected the feelings of those in charge of the foreign policy and

decision-makers in the Western countries and Arabs under their command, a

matter that forms connivance denoting complicity in the crime.

Such informational misleading has not been enough for those planning to

target Syria; thus, they have resorted to try to silence Syria’s voice and

conceal any image or scene disclosing their plans and ugly acts. So and in the

meeting of the Arab League Council in Al-Doha on 02.06.2012, some Arabs

decided to ask the administration of the Arab Satellite (Arabsat) and the

Egyptian Satellite Company (Nilesat) to take the necessary measures for

stopping the broadcasting of the official and non-official Syrian satellite

channels, following the steps of the US and European sanctions against the

Syrian media (the broadcasting of Addounia TV Channel through Nilesat and

Arabsat was stopped on 19.07.2012).

That decision and other Western decisions against our national information

have been as an operational order for the armed terrorist groups to target the

Syrian information media and media personnel, a matter carried out through

the terrorist attack against the location of the Syrian Al-Ekhbariya Channel

(Syria News) near Damascus City on 27.06.2012 resulting in its complete

destruction, the death of three media persons, four employees and the place

guards, not to mention several assaults against the Syrian media persons while

carrying out their professional duties, in an attempt to silence Syria's voice and

erase the actual scene.

Those armed groups also have targeted the Syrian press personnel: a terrorist

group assassinated the press photographer, Ihsan Al-Bunni, working for Al-

Thawra Daily on 12 July 2012 while heading home at Darayya area from his

job; the team of the Syrian Al-Ekhbariya Channel (Syria News) also was

attacked by a terrorist group at Al-Heffeh area in Lattakia Countryside on 11

June 2012, resulting in injuring the channel correspondent, Mazen

Mohammed, in his hand and the photographer, Fadi Yacoub, who got a shot

in his chest and underwent a surgery.

Such decisions and sanctions against our national information, besides being

a complicity in terror, flagrantly contradict the principles of information

freedom and the document regulating the Arab Satellite Broadcasting

adopted by the Arab information ministers in 2008 requesting commitment

with the principle of freedom of receiving broadcasting and re-broadcasting.

Moreover, the method of dealing with what is going on in Syria on the part

of some Arab and Western media is an outrageous violation of the

information work principles and the media honor charter.

Along with such massacres and crimes committed by armed groups against

the Syrian citizens and their state institutions, those Arab and Western media

convey the scene through sections broadcasted by terrorists on the social

communications sites which validity is difficult to ascertain, while ignoring

what is broadcasted by the official and private Syrian media, in contradiction

with media honor charter which obliges the various information media to

ascertain the validity of the news item from more than one source before

releasing it.

The claim of some channels of using shots from the social communications

sites on the plea of being unable to enter Syria is completely unacceptable,

especially as the Ministry of Information, since the beginning of events in

March 2011 and up to this date, has granted entry visas for more than 600

information teams representing all various Arab and foreign media, such as

TV stations, news agencies, papers and radio stations, in addition to about

100 media approved in Damascus, all of which are covering the daily

events.

The government of the Syrian Arab Republic has affirmed being committed to

the UN Envoy's plan, Kofi Annan, as it welcomed the mission of his successor

Lakhdar Ibrahimi and finding a peaceful outlet for the crisis under the leadership

of Syria in a way permitting the participation of all the people of our homeland in

making the future of Syria. Thus, we call upon Arab and international media to

shoulder their moral and professional responsibilities, abide by the media honor

charters and adopt objectivity in conveying the events from Syria while avoiding

unilateralism in covering them.

We also call upon those in charge of the Arab information to bear their legal

and moral responsibilities as regards obliging the information media to

observe the media honor charter and conventions signed by the Arab states

concerning news exchange, adoption of the true and reliable information item

validated from more than one source for achieving the basic principle in the

press profession based upon neutralism and objectivity and away from the

policy of agitating feelings, inciting sectarianism and kindling sedition among

the countrymen of the same homeland to the interest of the purposes and aims

of the enemy of the nation and the homeland.

*


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[Source: http://nsnbc.wordpress.com/2012/11/12/syrian-ministry-of-information-official-communique-november-2012/ ]


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