I am not the blogging type. In fact while I was in Syria I chose not to blog at all about my experiences. That being said, the situation in Syria is untenable and I needed a medium through which to report what is happening. To give you some background, I was present in Syria before the start of the revolution and I left the country only after my Arabic program closed. Only a third of the news coming out of Syria is reported. The other two-thirds never gets published due to the way in which journalists in the West source their material. Most Western news organizations do not have the assets necessary to accurately source stories coming out of Syria. In addition, all journalists have been banned from the country (although some journalists sneak in), and so it is hard to get a clear picture of what is going on.
That being said, terrible things are happening in Syria. Protesters who have remained mostly peaceful, brave tanks, bombs and bullets every day to voice their right to freedom. The Syrian regime is using a system of collective punishment against the Syrian populace. People are being shot and killed in the streets for merely being in a city where protests have occurred- one doesn't need to physically attend a protest anymore to become a target. Officially, 2,776 names of the dead have been recorded. Based on discussions with my Syrian friends and other activists, we think the number is as high as five thousand -or more- dead. We do not know the death toll in Hama but some say it could be two thousand dead. Around fifteen thousand people have been arrested- many are subjected to torture. Human rights groups across the world have documented evidence of massive human rights violations across the board.
Still, the West is largely ignorant of what is happening. The purpose of this blog is to change that by giving a voice to all of the stories you do not hear- to bring the personal human toll of this conflict to light so you, the reader, understand why the revolution in Syria is important, and why the international community must get involved. I have a number of stories from the past few weeks to upload so I will try and post as many of those as quickly as possible in the coming days so we can catch up to present news.
That being said, terrible things are happening in Syria. Protesters who have remained mostly peaceful, brave tanks, bombs and bullets every day to voice their right to freedom. The Syrian regime is using a system of collective punishment against the Syrian populace. People are being shot and killed in the streets for merely being in a city where protests have occurred- one doesn't need to physically attend a protest anymore to become a target. Officially, 2,776 names of the dead have been recorded. Based on discussions with my Syrian friends and other activists, we think the number is as high as five thousand -or more- dead. We do not know the death toll in Hama but some say it could be two thousand dead. Around fifteen thousand people have been arrested- many are subjected to torture. Human rights groups across the world have documented evidence of massive human rights violations across the board.
Still, the West is largely ignorant of what is happening. The purpose of this blog is to change that by giving a voice to all of the stories you do not hear- to bring the personal human toll of this conflict to light so you, the reader, understand why the revolution in Syria is important, and why the international community must get involved. I have a number of stories from the past few weeks to upload so I will try and post as many of those as quickly as possible in the coming days so we can catch up to present news.
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