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
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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.
*
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 (last page) |
[Source: http://nsnbc.wordpress.com/2012/11/12/syrian-ministry-of-information-official-communique-november-2012/ ]
0 Comments