Propaganda about conditions in Aleppo, including photos recycled from other incidents in other places, is spreading online amid efforts to justify war on the Syrian government.
Even mainstream media sources and humanitarian organizations admit that reports of atrocities in the besieged Syrian city are often unverifiable rumors.
“The U.N. human rights office said it had received reports of ‘pro-government forces killing at least 82 civilians including 11 women and 13 children in four different neighbourhoods,’” Rupert Colville, the spokesman for the U.N. human rights office, told reporters in Geneva.
But the United Nations was unable or unwilling to stand by Colville’s claims, adding in a separate statement provided later to AFP: “We hope, profoundly, that these reports are wrong, or exaggerated, as the situation is extremely fluid and it is very challenging to verify reports.”
Shira Rubin, a reporter at Vocativ, noted on Wednesday that images of atrocities in Aleppo are proliferating wildly on social media. However, Rubin added, “A large portion of those images are fake, sparking an uproar among those who argue the false posts diminish the reality of those suffering and fighting on the ground.”
Syrian geopolitical analyst Mimi Al Laham took to Twitter on Dec. 14 to point out that images purporting to show a terrorist attack came from music videos and an unrelated bombing in Pakistan:
While attacks attributed to the Syrian government have been a frequent topic of reporting throughout the Syrian civil war, atrocities by so-called “moderate” rebels,
forces with the backing of the United States and its allies in Europe
and the Middle East, rarely receive the same enthusiastic treatment in
the mainstream media.
Reports have even suggested that some of these groups have
blocked efforts to evacuate Aleppo’s civilian population, including
Jabhat Al-Sham, an extremist group with both U.S. backing and ties to
al-Qaida.Robert Fisk, a renowned foreign policy analyst, noted in a Dec. 14 report that while Syria’s leader, Bashar Assad, had undoubtedly carried out numerous human rights violations, the West also must be held accountable for its support of extremist groups involved in the conflict. He recounted one recent atrocity he heard from a refugee:
Only a few weeks ago, I interviewed one of the very first Muslim families to flee eastern Aleppo during a ceasefire. The father had just been told that his brother was to be executed by the rebels because he crossed the frontline with his wife and son. He condemned the rebels for closing the schools and putting weapons close to hospitals. And he was no pro-regime stooge; he even admired Isis for their good behaviour in the early days of the siege.Blaming atrocities in Syria solely on the Syrian government supports the agenda of the U.S. government, which seeks to overthrow the Syrian government and replace it with one more amenable to Western interests and investment by fossil fuel companies. WikiLeaks’ archives of U.S. diplomatic cables show that the United States, Israel and Saudi Arabia have sought to unseat Assad since at least 2006.
The original source of this article is Mint Press News
Copyright © Mint Press, Mint Press News, 2016
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