Committee to Protect Journalists

How I got to know and film ‘Islamic State’s’ most wanted men

Like many journalists with an interest in the war in Syria I had heard of Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently and had followed the group’s posts online to learn about life under jihadist rule.

I had read how they were using undercover reporters inside Raqqa and I became fascinated by how they operate as a group. In June last year I began messaging their spokesman, Abdalaziz Alhamza who now lives in Europe, and soon we were talking over the phone.

He was keen to get as much coverage of the situation in Raqqa as possible. It took a while to persuade him that the members’ personal stories deserved to be told.

Eventually, I flew out to meet Abdalaziz in January and spent a few days with him. It was a while before I could get him to open up about everything he and his friends had been through. That time spent just chatting, without any recording, was vital in gaining his trust.

It’s not often that BBC budgets can accommodate such an expense but for sensitive stories such as this one it is essential. It helps having an editor who gets that (Richard Knight) and room in the budget for you.

Read the full story at the BBC.

Watch Chloe Hadjimatheou’s five-part documentary ‘Islamic State’s’ Most Wanted.

Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently was the recipient of CPJ’s International Press Freedom Award in 2015.

Syrian Journalists Risk Death Covering Life Under Airstrikes And ISIS Occupation

“All of us are accepting that any one of us will be killed at anytime or anywhere,” one says.

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