Syria

“Even in my writing, I was not able to speak in a straightforward manner. There were these red lines which we weren’t able to go beyond, or speak about. But this aroused in me a counter-reaction which made me stronger, but also more miserable,” says Syrian writer and journalist Samar Yazbek in an interview with PEN International.

The Human Rights Watch campaign, Inside the Black Hole, tells the individual stories of 21 Syrians who have been detained by the government since the start of the Syrian uprising in 2011. Most have been detained solely for exercising their rights to free expression and peaceful assembly.

Reporters Without Borders expresses concern about Marc Marginedas, a Spanish journalist who was kidnapped by Jihadi fighters, and condemns the increase in difficulties for news providers in recent months in Syria.

With the world focused on the country’s chemical weapons stockpile, kidnapped and missing media workers in Syria must not be forgotten.

Italian journalist Domenico Quirico, who was kidnapped in Syria in early April, was released yesterday, Sunday 9 September, along with Belgian teacher Pierre Piccinin da Pratia.

The family of Syrian film director Mamoun Saeed Noufal received, on 23 August 2013, a phone call from the Syrian security forces informing them of his death and where they can find his body.

The Syrian Electronic Army, a group of hackers who support President Bashar al-Assad of Syria, took credit for a cyberattack on “The New York Times” and also claimed to have attacked Twitter and “The Huffington Post” U.K.

News providers are being assailed on all sides in Syria, not only by the army but also by the opposition, which is increasingly responsible for abuses against both Syrian and foreign journalists.

Unknown armed men abducted a news crew of the Orient News channel near Aleppo, Syria, also seizing the station’s vehicle and camera equipment.

Detained Syrian cartoonist Youssef Abdelke was one of the original 100 signatories of a document called “Principles of the Revolution”, calling for the removal of Assad and his senior ministers along with the establishment of an interim government under UN supervision.

Syrian forces are urged to immediately release foreign journalists currently being held captive in the country and ensure that all journalists are free to report on the civil war without the threat of abduction.

PEN International is campaigning for the release of writers and journalists who are among those held in Syria, some in incommunicado detention.

A new London exhibition called #withoutwords provides a platform to Syrian artists influenced by the conflict engulfing their country who don’t have a free and safe space to display their art in Syria.

The French radio station Europe1 said today that its reporter, Didier François, and photographer, Edouard Elias, had not been heard from in more than 24 hours as of 7 June 2013.

Nineteen human rights organisations have joined forces to condemn the continued enforced disappearance of Syrian human rights lawyer Khalil Ma’touq whose health has been steadily deterioriating over the past eight months he spent in detention.

Yara Abbas, 26, a war correspondent for the al-Ikhbariya television channel, was killed by opposition gunfire in an offensive by forces loyal to President Bashar al Assad.