| New York Times | - |
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, making
the country one of the most hostile conflict zones for news gatherers ...
Journalists in Syria Face Dangers of War and Rising Risk of Abduction
Remy De La Mauviniere/Associated Press
Florence Aubenas spoke last
month at a gathering for Didier François and Édouard Elias, fellow
French journalists who disappeared near Aleppo, Syria.
By RICK GLADSTONE
Published: August 9, 2013
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, making the country one of the most
hostile conflict zones for news gatherers in recent memory, according to
news media advocacy organizations, rights workers and veteran
correspondents.
Multimedia
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Radek Pietruszka/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
The Polish photographer Marcin Suder disappeared on July 24.
YouTube, via Associated Press
A YouTube video showed Austin Tice, an American who was taken last year.
Some appear to have been carried out by armed insurgent extremist groups
and criminal networks seeking ransom in cash, weapons or both. But
others have no declared motive.
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.
Foreign reporters were initially welcomed by many insurgents and Syrian
civilians, taken for advocates who could publicize grievances against
President Bashar al-Assad. Now they are sometimes viewed as interlopers
who have no stake in the outcome of the conflict, which has left more
than 100,000 people dead.
Spreading economic desperation in Syria has increased the possibility of
betrayal, extortion and abduction, according to news media advocacy and
rights groups. 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.
“We see more journalists not abducted by the government, but by
independent militias who are going after money, and this is worrying,”
said Sherif Mansour, the Middle East and North Africa program
coordinator for the Committee to Protect Journalists. The trend toward
cash ransom, he said, started in late 2012, “but we can see from the
targeting that basically they’re going after nationalities that are
going to pay.”
Jonathan Alpeyrie, a French-American photojournalist for the Polaris
agency, was abducted by Islamist 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.”
Ricardo Garcia Vilanova,
a photojournalist and cameraman who has spent more than 13 months in
Syria over multiple trips since the conflict began in 2011, said he had
sensed a new mistrust toward the foreign news media on his most recent
visit. He said many Syrians who opposed Mr. Assad resented the Western
military reluctance to intervene.
The list of cases in the past few months includes both Syrian and
foreign journalists. On July 25, three Syrian employees of Orient TV, an
opposition television channel, were abducted in the northern town of
Tel Rifaat: Obeida Batal, Hosam Nizam al-Dine and Aboud al-Atik. On July
24, a Polish photojournalist, Marcin Suder, 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, Domenico Quirico, an Italian journalist for the newspaper La Stampa, went missing near the western city of Homs.
Two Americans journalists were publicly acknowledged to be missing in
the past year. Austin Tice, a freelancer who had written for The
Washington Post, McClatchy newspapers and Al Jazeera’s English-language
channel, disappeared near Damascus almost one year ago. And James Foley,
who had worked for GlobalPost, a Boston-based news Web site, disappeared Thanksgiving Day in Idlib.
In Mr. Foley’s case, an initial decision was made to withhold news of
his disappearance, said Phil Balboni, the chief executive and co-founder
of GlobalPost, while it quietly investigated what might have happened.
Six weeks later, after consultations with Mr. Foley’s family, GlobalPost
announced in a news article that he had been kidnapped by unidentified gunmen.
“We reached the point where we concluded that his likely abductors
weren’t going to harm him in any way if we went public,” Mr. Balboni
said. Based on information from what he described as credible sources,
Mr. Balboni said he believed Mr. Foley had been abducted by pro-Assad
militiamen and later turned over to the government in Damascus, despite
official Syrian denials.
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 abductions have increased as the insurgency’s reliance on jihadist
groups, like the Nusra Front and the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria,
has grown. “They try to kidnap wealthy Syrians and some journalists for
ransom,” Mr. Bouckaert said in an interview in June with Syria Deeply, an independent blog about the conflict. “The kidnappers tend to know the wealth of their victims,” he said.
Mr. Bouckaert said a second category of abduction, in which Sunnis and
Shias kidnap each other in tit-for-tat hostilities, has also increased.
Unexplained disappearances have proliferated as well, he said, “where
people are taken by unknown gunmen and never seen again,” as in the case
of two archbishops from Aleppo who vanished in April.
“In general, instability is on the rise in Syria, and these kidnappings
are part of this instability,” he said. “Kidnappings are a part of the
dangers that civilians in general face in this conflict.”
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