CPJ promotes press freedom worldwide and defends the right of journalists to report the news without fear of reprisal.
RBSS is one of the only independent outlets operating inside Syria to tell the truth about life inside ISIS held territory
Ahmed Mohamed al-Mousa, a member of Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently. was killed today by a group of masked men in Idlib, Syria, according to the citizen journalist group, which CPJ honored last month with its 2015 International Press Freedom Award.
story via @mashable
One of the first things the Islamic State militants did after capturing the town of Raqqa in Syria early last year was paint the city black. Once the canvas for colorful murals, walls and monuments were covered with the black flag of the extremists.
Darkness further descended as ISIS began preventing people from moving freely in and out of the city, and communicating with the outside world. With time, their slick propaganda videos became the only view of Raqqa.
But despite threats and brutal executions, one group of young activists refuse to be cowed. The group, known as Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently, continues to show the world what life under ISIS domination is really like, using social media to share photos, videos, and news from the city.
“Let me illustrate the size of our suffering. This beautiful city, New York, has a population of about eight and a half million people. Imagine that more than two million people were forced to flee and the city had no teachers, doctors, postal workers.”
– Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently, recipients of CPJ’s 2015 International Press Freedom Award
Recipients of CPJ’s 2015 International Press Freedom Award
TV anchors and correspondents have flooded Paris in the last few days, but journalists are nowhere to be seen on the streets of Raqqa, Syria, where both French and Russian warplanes are pounding Islamic State targets in response to recent terrorist attacks.
That doesn’t mean some aren’t bravely covering the impact of aerial bombardment and Islamic State occupation. Since April 2014, members of activist organization Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently have secretly produced the most sustained coverage of life under Islamic State control. In the days since Friday’s attacks in Paris, its dispatches have been widely cited by news organizations and circulated on social media.
“We are fighting for our city,” AbdAlaziz Alhamza, a member of the group, told The Huffington Post in an interview Tuesday. “We don’t have weapons, but we have our pens or our website or whatever. We are fighting online.”
Alhamza, a 24-year-old Syrian refugee now living in Berlin, was visiting New York, where theCommittee to Protect Journalists will honor his group next week.
Read full story by Michael Calderone at the Huffington Post
Image credits in captions
The Committee to Protect Journalists calls on the Turkish authorities to investigate and bring to justice the murderers of two Syrian journalists found slain in an apartment in the city of Urfa in southeastern Turkey today. Ibrahim Abd al-Qader worked as the executive director and Fares Hamadi as head of the production department for Eye on the Homeland, a Syrian media collective, according to a statement on the group’s Facebook page.
A member of the Syrian journalist collective Raqqa is Being Silently Slaughtered (RBSS) told CPJ that Abd Al-Qader was also a founding member of their group. CPJ will recognize Raqqa is Being Silently Slaughtered this year at the organization’s annual International Press Freedom Award.
The RBSS member, Abu Mohammed, as well as Ahmed Abd al-Qader, Ibrahim’s brother and a staff member of Eye on the Homeland, both told CPJ they believe Islamic State militants were responsible for the murders.