Lama al-Khadra, Kamal Jamal Beyk and Baddur Abdul Karim announce their recent defection from official Syrian state media at a press conference in Paris on Friday.

AFP/Paris


Lama al-Khadra summed up her work for Radio Damascus with a grim phrase: “Our mission was to kill with words.”
Along with two other journalists for the state-run radio station, Khadra met with journalists in Paris on Friday after the three fled to France to join opponents of President Bashar al-Assad’s regime.
Now hoping to set up a pro-opposition station to counter regime propaganda, the three described a climate of fear and paranoia within state media that have remained loyal to Assad amid an uprising that has left more than 45,000 dead.
“It’s hard to always wear a mask, to show nothing, to think and talk like them, the men of the regime,” Khadra said after reading a “statement of defection” from the three in a bookstore in central Paris.
The one-time head of the station’s political and cultural programmes, Khadra said she had for months toed the regime’s line in reporting events of the uprising that began in mid-March 2011.
“We were confined to following reports from (state news agency) Sana and denigrating the opposition, it wasn’t easy,” she said.
The newsroom was beset by paranoia, she said, with no one daring to watch anything but state television.
“It was dangerous to watch Al Jazeera without looking like a revolutionary,” she said. “Within the official media, many journalists are suffering along with the people.”
The journalists said they were under near-constant watch and faced frequent intimidation.
“Some of us were called in by the secret services,” said Kamal Jamal Beyk, the station’s programme director, who fled along with Khadra and Baddur Abdul Karim, the former head of the station’s cultural programming.
“We were threatened, as were our families,” said Jamal Beyk, who said he was questioned three times by secret police.
“Working for the state media in Syria is like living in an invisible prison,” said Abdul Karim.
“We were no longer journalists,” she said, describing a newsroom where “some support the regime and don’t hide it, while others stay because they have no choice.”
Jamal Beyk said “Iranian information experts” had been brought into the newsroom to train journalists and that the “most zealous” pro-regime reporters were sent to Beirut to study with Hezbollah’s Al Manar satellite television channel.



Russia sees no
chance Assad
will step down


AFP/Damascus


Russia yesterday acknowledged that Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad would not be persuaded to leave power, but nonetheless insisted there was still a chance of finding a political solution to the Syrian conflict.
Moscow’s caution came as forces loyal to Assad seized a district of the strategic central city of Homs after a fierce assault that a Britain-based watchdog said sparked a humanitarian crisis.
The latest diplomatic push saw Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov meet UN-Arab League peace envoy Lakhdar Brahimi for talks that represented a final end-of-year bid to accelerate moves to halt 21 months of bloodshed.
The talks came amid emerging signs that Russia was beginning to distance itself from Assad’s government and urgent efforts by Brahimi to resurrect a failed peace initiative that world powers agreed to in Geneva in June.
Brahimi bluntly stated that Syria was facing a choice between “hell or the political process” while urging the world to work tirelessly to bring about a diplomatic solution.
“It is really indispensable that the conflict finishes in 2013 and really the beginning of 2013,” Brahimi said after the 90-minute talks.
Lavrov said both he and Brahimi agreed there was hope for a solution as long as world powers put pressure on the warring parties to accept a mediated end to violence that has claimed more than 45,000 lives.
“The confrontation is escalating. But we agree the chance for a political solution remains,” Lavrov said alongside Brahimi.
Moscow has been under intense pressure to urge the leadership of its last Middle East ally to accept a face-saving agreement that would see the rebels assume gradual command as the fighting reaches Damascus itself.
Yet analysts have questioned the actual sway the Kremlin has over Assad, and Lavrov appeared to betray a hint of frustration when revealing that Assad had this week told Brahimi that he does not intend to leave.
“Regarding Bashar al-Assad, he repeatedly said, both publicly and in private... that he is not planning to leave, that he will remain in his post,” Lavrov said.
“There is no possibility to change this position.”
Brahimi painted a stark picture of Syrian neighbours Jordan and Lebanon being overrun by a million refugees should heavy fighting for the seat of power break out in Syria’s 5mn-strong capital.
If this fighting “develops into something uglier... (refugees) can only go to only two places—Lebanon and Jordan”, warned Brahimi.
“So if the alternative is hell or the political process, we have all of us got to work ceaselessly for a political process,” he said.
“The magnitude of the problem that exists now and the magnitude of the problem that exists tomorrow cannot be ignored,” he added.
Lavrov echoed that message by warning that Syria threatened to dissolve into a failed state similar to Somalia—a nation overrun by militants and warlords.


Air attack leaves
trail of destruction

Reuters/Azaz, Syria


Standing in the wreckage of his home, destroyed in an air strike two hours before, Abu Badri surveyed the damage as relatives scoured the rubble for any valuables they could retrieve.
“We’ll have to find a tent to stay in near the border with Turkey. What else can we do?” said the 38-year-old man, walking on a pile of broken concrete under a collapsed roof.
Abu Badri’s was one of a cluster of at least six houses destroyed by two bombs dropped yesterday on Azaz, a rebel-controlled town in northern Syria just beginning to recover from an earlier bombardment by President Bashar al-Assad’s forces.
Eleven people were killed in the bombings, according to local activist Abu Zaid, who said he had seen their fresh graves dug in the cemetery nearby.
“The number of casualties is unclear - they took some wounded people to Turkey,” said a local medic who declined to be named. “We removed four dead children.”
Blood was spattered on the bricks that littered the area around the bomb site. A child’s teddy bear lay in the wreckage and nearby cars were marked by shrapnel and bullet holes.
A bulldozer cleared the heavy rubble while young boys dug through the debris with their hands, hoping to find people still alive amid the broken bed frames and crushed furniture.
“The bomb fell on top of us,” said Abu Badri, wearing a black bomber jacket zipped up against the winter cold. The front door of his home had disappeared and relatives were carrying out a closet door, drinking glasses, a fridge and an oven. He said four children and an elderly man were among the dead.
Neighbours pulled mattresses, carpets and clothes from their homes and packed household items on trucks to take them from their destroyed homes to the next place of refuge.
“This is a residential area,” said Ahmed, 30, whose uncle’s house was hit in the strike.
“There are civilians - no Free Syrian Army,” he said, referring to rebel fighters.
“We were sitting inside then suddenly everyone flew all over the place,” said a man whose sister’s house was hit. “God destroy (Assad) and his home.”