Journalists Face Dangers by “rebels” in Syria

NEW YORK-Abductions of journalists inside Syria have increased sharply this year as the ravages of the conflict have worsened and the insurgency has turned more jihadist and chaotic, according to veteran correspondents.

Some appear to have been carried out by armed insurgent extremist groups and criminal networks seeking ransom in cash, weapons or both.

Foreign journalists are particular targets, mostly Europeans who have ventured into Syria, usually without the permission of the Syrian government, to cover a conflict now well into its third year. Syrian journalists have been taken, too, as have Syrians working with foreign news organizations.

Some translators, drivers and local guides have reported that criminal groups or jihadists have tried to recruit them to lure journalists into Syria with promises of scoops.

“There have been more abductions and there have been nastier abductions,” said Donatella Rovera, a senior investigator for Amnesty International who has spent long periods traveling in Syria to document rights abuses in the conflict. “There is no denying that the fragmentation of armed groups, and the increased visibility of radical groups, have coincided with an increase in abductions,” she said. “It’s fair to assume there is a relationship there.”

The Committee to Protect Journalists, a New York-based advocacy group, has reported at least 14 cases of local and international journalists who are missing or have been abducted this year. Reporters Without Borders, based in Paris, has recorded 15 cases of foreign journalists who are missing or have been abducted or arrested. But the total number of abductions is believed to be significantly higher because many cases have not been publicly disclosed, usually at the request of the victims’ families, partly for fear of angering the kidnappers or emboldening them to demand higher ransom payments.

Even at the reported numbers, the pace of abductions of foreign journalists appears on a trajectory to surpass the 25 cases in Iraq in 2007, at the height of the conflict there.

Jonathan Alpeyrie, a French-American photojournalist for the Polaris agency, was abducted by radical “fighters” near Damascus on April 29 and released nearly three months later. He said a $450,000 ransom had been paid on his behalf.

“The “rebels” are so desperate they don’t care about their reputation abroad,” he said in an interview published on Wednesday by the Paris-based Journal de la Photographie. “They see guys like us as an opportunity.”

On July 24, a Polish photojournalist, MarcinSuder, was taken in the northwestern province of Idlib. On June 6, two French journalists employed by the Europe 1 radio station, Didier François and Edouard Elias, disappeared near Aleppo. On April 24, a Belgian academic, Pierre Piccinin de Prata, who was reporting for the Brussels newspaper Le Soir, disappeared. On April 9, DomenicoQuirico, an Italian journalist for the newspaper La Stampa, went missing near the western city of Homs.

Peter N. Bouckaert, the emergencies director at Human Rights Watch, said overall abductions began to increase when fighting broke out last year in Aleppo, the country’s once-flourishing commercial hub.

The”Nusra Front and the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria” are trying  to kidnap wealthy Syrians and some journalists for ransom,” Mr. Bouckaert said. “The kidnappers tend to know the wealth of their victims,” he said.

Source:The New York Times

M.D