E-mail updates
Follow on Twitter
Subscribe to RSS
Handout / Reuters
People run for cover from smoke after shelling in the Karm al-Zeitoun area of Homs, Syria on March 12, 2012. The image was supplied to Reuters by a network of activists.
The bloody uprising in Syria, which marked its first anniversary Thursday, has been markedly different to other Arab Spring revolts. It has also been documented in a different way.
In contrast to the popular protests that toppled leaders in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and Yemen last year, the flow of information and images out of Syria has been severely restricted. President Bashar al-Assad's regime has denied visas to many journalists and insists those it does let in be accompanied by government escorts.
SANA via Reuters
A handout photo distributed by the official Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) shows electrical workers at what it says are buildings destroyed by opposition forces in the Baba Amr area in Homs on March 14, 2012.
To fill this void, photographs have come from a variety of sources. Citizen journalists and activist groups upload videos and reports to YouTube and Facebook. The state-controlled Syrian Arab News Agency distributes photographs. Anonymous photographers work as "stringers" inside Syria, supplying images to foreign news agencies. Finally, a small group of international photojournalists have been smuggled in and out of the country, often with the help of opposition groups.
One of the latter group, Italian photographer Alessio Romenzi, produced a series of photos showing how activists have used their cellphones and laptops to document the uprising. Their amateur videos, often impossible to verify, have nevertheless become the primary source of images of the year-long conflict.
At times the same images have been appropriated by both the government and the opposition, each aiming to pin the blame for massacres on the other.
AFP - Getty Images
An image grab taken from a video uploaded on YouTube on March 13, 2012, allegedly shows shelling by regime forces in Maaret al-Numan in the restive Idlib province.
Khaled Al-hariri / Reuters
A man puts a picture of President Bashar al-Assad on his chest as he attends a rally at Umayyad square in Damascus on March 15, 2012.
Like the activists, journalists working in Syria face substantial risks. Last month, French photographer Remi Ochlik and American reporter Marie Colvin were killed in army shelling of an opposition stronghold in Homs.
Syrian journalists and bloggers continue to be arrested, according to Reporters Without Borders, which ranked Syria 176th out of 179 countries in its press freedom index. On Saturday the Syrian Information Ministry issued a warning that journalists who enter the country illegally "are accompanying terrorists, promoting their crimes and fabricating baseless news."
Associated Press photographer Rodrigo Abd, whose pictures of the conflict have been featured on PhotoBlog over the last three weeks, acknowledged the dangers he had faced in taking this path, but said "it was the only way to cover the story properly, without being at the mercy of government minders who try to control what you see and whom you meet."
Ricardo Garcia Vilanova / AFP - Getty Images
Members of the rebel Free Syrian Army gather in a mountainous area of the restive Idlib province in northwestern Syria on March 13, 2012. Some 100 fighters are gathered in this region, a hotspot of rebel operations against President Bashar al-Assad's regime.
Another photojournalist, Zohra Bensemra of Reuters, described how the car she was traveling in came under direct attack:
Rockets whizzed above our heads and assault rifles rattled in our direction. But we drove slowly, afraid to speed up lest we draw more attention.
Finally, we stopped in an olive grove, where we lay face down in the mud. We could hear shelling, far away and close by. Dusk was falling and we could make out the red tracer of anti-aircraft fire lighting up the sky. They were firing heavy weaponry at journalists. We were not armed. Nor was our guide.
Zohra Bensemra / Reuters, file
A defaced poster of President Bashar al-Assad is seen on the ground after heavy shelling by government forces in Sermeen near the northern city of Idlib on February 28, 2012.
A year on from the first, daring demonstration held by a few dozen protesters in Damascus, the Syrian uprising has become one of the most protracted and bloodiest of all the Arab revolts.
Photographs, which hold the power to shock, outrage and to shift international opinion, will continue to play a pivotal role in the global response to the conflict, a fact of which Assad seems only too aware. The stifling of independent reporting will almost certainly remain a part of his regime's strategy for survival.
Stringer / AFP - Getty Images
Syrian children hide behind sand bags on the street in the central town of Rastan, near Homs, on March 13, 2012.
Leave a Comment:
do you think they had to pass a background check to get their weapons,or is our government just scared that it is going to happen here if things don't change and they are trying to dis-arm the american people so we can't take our country back?
lol.....what? Are you asking if these people have to have background checks to get weapons? Just in case you were not joking the answer is no.
Who is talking of image?
Invent all stories and media reports: Assad is by far the best Muslim dictator among most of the ME Muslim dictators.
Worst are the Sunni seventh century mindset barbaric, corrupt, despotic Saudis, Kuwait, UAE and the Arab League gangsters!
In those nations, leave alone fighting battles, one can't even talk against rulers!
Unfortunately, they are the masters for many big words and big claims making people!
Who has credibility in the world with oil prices zooming again?
Most know the culprits (Saudis, oil companies, lobbyists and their US politician cheap puppets) of Iraqi wars and the jump of oil prices from $30 a barrel to $145 during the height of Iraqi wars. Most know the bogus claims and the disastrous results on the economies of the world.
If the same gang try to invent WMDs in Iran and troubles in Syria, the low credibility will hit to lowest levels.
World does not have too many fools!
Assad deserves to live in a country that looks that horrible ....
American and Barak stay out of this period, we should not send money or American troops or aid to a group of people who want someone else to fight and die for them or give them money and aid who appreciate nothing. If they are too lazy to fight then it is their problem. No matter what you do for the people in these countries they are not happy and will turn on you faster then it took me to type this. Look at Iraq and Afghanistan how many of American lives were lost, money and aid were given to them and look all we got was a slap in the face. Let them kill each other they have been doing this to each other for thousands of years and will not stop until the world comes to an end.
As a Vet, not a night goes by that I dont see these images in my head...the children, the sandbags on street corners...the light brown n black sweaters that you see glide past trees and zip across roof tops all day every day..
These young kids out here have no idea what it means to be a killer...no idea what it sounds like when someones "soul" escapes their body at the very end.....They never seen a guy be shot and not even know he was dead, streams of blood squirting out like someone poked holes in a water bed.
This is real life, this is people, this is the world stage....Leave your petty differences behind, the world is so much bigger than alot of these "news articles"