FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
ABORIGINAL NEWS GROUP CALLS FOR INVESTIGATION INTO THE DEATH OF CITIZEN-JOURNALIST BASIL AL-SAYED WHILE WORKING IN HOMS, SYRIA
A Communiqué from the ANG Public Information Bureau:
To the Peoples of the Fourth World
To the Mass Media
The Fourth World — 12.29.2011 — The Aboriginal News Group wishes at this time to extend our deepest condolences to the family, friends and co-workers of independent Syrian journalist Basil al-Sayed, 24, who was extra-judicially killed yesterday by government security forces in Homs, Syria while documenting a violent military raid against a throng of protesting citizens. Brother al-Sayed regrettably expired as a result of his injuries at a regional hospital very soon after the incident.
At the time of his shooting Brother al-Sayed was on scene at a checkpoint in Homs, filming the Syrian security services and their operatives firing upon unarmed protesters during a march. Brother al-Sayed was one of many independent citizen-journalists in Syria who have been bravely reporting on the country’s unrest via social media, mobile phone reports and people-driven video outlets such as YouTube. He was particularly known for his bravery in taking great personal risk to attain critical footage of the military’s use of excessive force in Syria, extremely violent disturbances which have amounted to more than 5,000 casualties with new deaths being recorded each day.
In response to President Bashar Assad’s government ban on professional native and foreign journalists at the beginning of the crisis, many have taken it upon themselves to do what is necessary to get accurate information to the outside world. Without these courageous people, willing to risk it all to report the news, the realities of government and military abuse against peaceful citizens demanding their rights would have no voice. Not in Syria or anywhere else in the world where common people are standing up for their civil, political, human and international rights.
His death at the hands of a professional military is not just a statistic, it is a disgrace. Journalists should not have to place their lives at risk to do their jobs. And we assert that Brother al-Sayed was ‘on the job’. He has paid the ultimate price for being a working journalist. And his example of courage, commitment and integrity under extremely harsh and repressive conditions, without wages, has by fiat earned every other serious independent news-blogger/blog-journalist the right to be regarded as a legitimate ‘journalist’.
For that is exactly what he was. And that is how we will remember him.
End the repression against the peoples of Syria NOW!
End the targeting of journalists NOW!
Democracy!
Social Justice!
Indigenous Autonomy!
For further inquiries please contact:
Avram Montag, ANG Public Information Bureau / The Fourth World:
aboriginalnewsgroup@gmail.com
aboriginalnewsgroup.blogspot.com
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