This Washington Post story is written with sadness. If only the CIA had any clue about the reality inside Syria, it implies, they could do what they do in many nations around the world and meddle in internal affairs: Sixteen months into… the uprising in Syria, the United States is struggling to develop a clear understanding…
Showing all posts tagged Syria
How do we define terrorism? Anybody who’s opposed to us
Medialens ask the questions most in the media aren’t: When is an act of terrorism not terrorism? When the victims are officially sanctioned state enemies. This was clear from the political and media response to the assassinations of senior ministers of the Syrian ”˜regime’. On 18 July, a… bomb attack… on the national security headquarters in Damascus…
What is tearing Syria apart
The horrors inside Syria are increasingly clear. This is both a civil war and a proxy war with various powers determined to oppose and isolate Iran. Here’s a very powerful piece in today’s New York Times by Janine di Giovanni that highlights the chaos of Assad’s Syria: What does it feel like when a war…
Footage of my 2012 PEN Free Voices lecture
I was invited this year to give the 2012 Sydney PEN “Free Voices” lecture on free speech, censorship and war. It was delivered at the Sydney Writer’s Festival in May and in Melbourne in June. ABC published an extract recently. Film footage of the Sydney event is now available. May you be provoked:
Wikileaks reveals; US PR firm tells Assad regime how to improve image
Via Foreign Policy: The lobbying firm that brought you a… Vogue… story featuring the Syrian first lady was still trying to help the Syrian… regime improve its image abroad two months after the notoriously ill-timed article was published and then scrubbed, as the country descended into violence, according to a document revealed by Wikileaks. The international firm Brown…
Private eyes are watching all of us
The idea that repression only happens “over there” is a myth that needs to be constantly challenged (my recent PEN lecture tackled this). Take this (via Pro Publica): Cellphone companies hold onto your location information for years and routinely provide it to police and, in anonymized form, to outside companies. As they note in their…
State Department admits it’s hypocritical over Palestine
Wonderful find via Mondoweiss. Speaks for itself: … VICTORIA NULAND, spokesperson for State Department: Listen, before we leave Syria, I just want to take the opportunity, if you didn’t see it, to draw your attention to the Human Rights Watch report that was released today that identifies some 27 detention centers that Human Rights Watch says…
Wikileaks releases the Syria Files
Yet more confirmation that Wikileaks remains an essential news organisation. Today they did this: Today, Thursday 5 July 2012, WikiLeaks began publishing the Syria Files – more than two million emails from Syrian political figures, ministries and associated companies, dating from August 2006 to March 2012. This extraordinary data set derives from 680 Syria-related entities…
2012 proves that dangers for reporters increasing by the day
Columbia Journalism Review has the shocking facts: … With 72 journalists killed so far this year, 2012 is on pace to be the deadliest on record, the International Press Institute (IPI)… announcedhere on Sunday. The media freedom organization’s executive director, Alison Bethel McKenzie, choked up and struggled to speak as she… addressed… the group’s annual conference. “From Somalia to…
My 2012 PEN Free Voices lecture on free speech and why it matters
The following is published today as the lead piece by ABC’s The Drum: The two-hour drive from Islamabad to Peshawar is along a surprisingly smooth road. Mud-brick homes sit amongst lush, green fields. Police checkpoints are set up routinely to stop unwanted visitors. I am asked why I want to see the troubled Pakistani town…