Is Hollywood about to award an Oscar to ‘For Sama’ – a propagandumentary that pushes Al Qaeda’s narrative in Aleppo?

Posted By . Under IMPORTANT  Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,   

Oscar-nominated ‘For Sama’ is a gritty, nicely produced “documentary” claiming to current the truth of the five-year siege of the Syrian metropolis of Aleppo. Simply how misleading is that this portrayal?

The 90-minute video directed by UK Channel four’s Waad Al-Kateab and English filmmaker Edward Watts has been unanimously praised within the mainstream media and tonight it would win this yr’s Academy Award for Greatest Documentary Characteristic. However does the movie current a really  unbiased image of the Syrian battle or, relatively, simply the aspect of the story that matches the Western narrative in regards to the battle? 

Waad al-Kateab and Edward Watts, February four, © REUTERS/Mario Anzuoni

The armed-group occupation of East Aleppo portrayed as “freedom”

East Aleppo was the armed group hinterland of town of Aleppo for 5 years. Throughout this time the shape-shifting militant cadres mingled and confronted one another in mafia-style gang warfare over territory, standing, financing and management over the civilians dwelling by means of their occupation. In the end the dominant pressure was Al-Qaeda or Nusra Entrance in Syria. 

Only a few journalists might safely enter this barren and desolate zone reigned over by brutal, extremist teams. Channel four teamed up with Syrian “revolution” sympathiser and camera-woman, Waad Al-Kateab, and her alleged “physician” husband who goes by the pseudonym of Hamza Al Kateab (actual identify Zahed Katurji) to provide “citizen journalist” reportage that may successfully choreograph the occasions in Aleppo for an unsuspecting public within the West. 

Screenshot taken from Channel four’s collection of stories on Aleppo, offered by Wa’advert Al Kateab.

Inside Aleppo consisted of a collection of video stories produced by Waad, for Channel4, that claimed to file the day by day life contained in the extremist group-controlled districts of East Aleppo. Channel four accepted and republished these stories with none obvious unbiased verification or investigation. 

Aleppo was Channel four’s perceived “Guernica,” their reporting was constantly one-sided and partisan in the direction of the “average rebels” who, based on the British TV community, had been being “disproportionately” focused by the “dictator Assad” and the Syrian Arab Military. The fact for journalists, like myself, who hung out in Syrian-government secured West Aleppo, sheltering 1.5 million civilians together with an estimated 500,000 who had fled East Aleppo when it was invaded by armed militants in 2012, was diametrically totally different from the narrative being marketed by Channel four and nearly all of state-aligned media within the West. Aleppo, based on residents, was against the “revolution” from day one. 

Channel four normalising terrorism and extremism

Channel four’s reporting in Aleppo and Syria has nearly invariably offered the child-beheading, ethnic-cleansing sectarian teams as “rebels with a trigger.” In a 2016 report, ‘Aleppo: up shut with the rebels’, Krishnan Guru Murthy follows none aside from members of previously US-funded Nour Al Din Zinki, accountable for the horrific public torture and decapitation of 12-year-old Palestinian little one, Abdullah, in July 2016. 

In the identical report, Murthy seems to legitimize the armed group technique of mass suicide bombing as an act of “protection” with out mentioning that many of those suicide bombers had been concentrating on civilian and residential areas. Channel four eliminated this report after their lack of recognition of the battle crimes dedicated by its protagonists was uncovered. 

‘For Sama’ is little greater than a compilation of the ‘Inside Aleppo’ stories, skilfully transformed right into a feature-length documentary that has already been awarded the Bafta for greatest documentary and is nominated for the Oscars this weekend. 

Devoted to Waad’s daughter, the documentary can solely be described as a grotesque misrepresentation of life in East Aleppo below the tyranny of sectarian armed teams. Anybody watching this film will assume that East Aleppo was the “free nation” as described by Waad, besieged and preyed upon by the Syrian authorities. The movie actually airbrushes Nusra Entrance  from the situation. Teams like Nour al-Din al-Zenki should not referred to, their crimes go unmentioned. 

The position of Hamza Al-Kateab affiliated with the armed teams in East Aleppo

Many journalists have identified the risks of working in areas occupied by the militant factions. Waad and her husband don’t have any obvious points dwelling aspect by aspect with teams famend for his or her brutal violence towards anybody who would problem their rule. In truth, a variety of movies and social media interactions display the shut relationship that Hamza had with members of those teams – specifically with the aforementioned Nour al-Din al-Zenki. 

Whereas company media and ‘For Sama’ painting Hamza as a compassionate “physician,” we should ask how misleading that picture is. Many interactions have been deleted from Hamza’s social media accounts however are nonetheless accessible as screenshots. In these interactions Hamza is concerned in navy technique discussions with extremist teams. Hamza is clearly conscious of the violence and abuse meted out towards civilians by the occupying forces however he by no means condemned it to the media retailers who relied closely upon his testimony to file their Aleppo stories.

When the terrorists had been evacuated from the final district of East Aleppo, Al Sukare, the place Al Quds hospital was situated, they left behind a lethal path of mines and booby traps designed to kill civilians returning to their houses. I used to be, myself, witness to one among these explosions, after a booby lure left in a washer was detonated – murdering and injuring civilians on Christmas Eve 2016. 

Based on social media conversations, Hamza was conscious of this heinous follow. He and Waad evacuated similtaneously the armed teams. Subsequently, it may be assumed that they knew in regards to the risks that awaited civilians, but they apparently did nothing to warn them. 

A lot of ‘For Sama’ footage is situated within the Al Quds hospital which was, itself, the middle of controversy in East Aleppo when Medical doctors with out Borders (MSF) declared it “destroyed” by a Russian airstrike in Might 2016. Varied unbiased researchers and journalists uncovered this narrative as deceptive and unsubstantiated. 

Screenshot from film ‘For Sama’ (2019) Dir: Waad Al-Kateab, Edward Watts, Channel four/PBS Distribution

‘For Sama’ omits the truth that hospitals in East Aleppo had been taken over by the armed teams, typically transformed into navy headquarters. The huge complicated of the Childrens and Eye hospital was remodeled right into a torture and detainment middle for civilians who didn’t adjust to the armed group ideology or these perceived to be Syrian government-loyalists. After liberation of East Aleppo, civilians testified that they didn’t obtain medical therapy within the remaining hospitals which had been successfully militant triage facilities. I spoke with kids and youngsters whose injured limbs had been amputated by the so-called medical workers who most popular such merciless expediency over long-term therapy. Why does ‘For Sama’ not cowl any of those inconvenient truths?

The youngsters I interviewed in East Aleppo who had been compelled to witness public executions and crucifixions, by the extremist teams, are ignored by Channel four and ‘For Sama’. Journalists like Theo Padnos and Matthew Schrier, who had been imprisoned and tortured by the armed teams within the Eye Hospital compound  should not referred to. 

The mortars fired day by day into West Aleppo by the militants that Waad doesn’t discuss with had been accountable for hundreds of civilian deaths and the maiming of numerous extra who misplaced limbs within the rain of deadly “Hell-cannon” gasoline canister missiles or had been sniped within the streets that bordered the Nusra Entrance-dominated enclaves. 

The 2013 Queiq River narrative defined

The 2013 River Queiq bloodbath is portrayed, within the movie, as a Syrian authorities crime, the gory scenes exploited to additional criminalise the SAA. If Channel four had carried out any type of investigation into this occasion, they could have fulfilled their obligation to supply context and proof that may have higher knowledgeable their audiences within the West. Channel four should be thought of grossly negligent of their distorted illustration of the Syrian battle.

Aleppo-based journalist, Khaled Iskef, did precisely this investigation over a interval of years earlier than Al Mayadeen channel revealed his findings based mostly upon forensic DNA stories and witness testimony. ‘For Sama’ glosses over truth in favor of propaganda and denies justice for the victims of extremist violence & brutality. Based on Iskef’s proof, River Queiq was a handy dumping floor for these armed teams to eliminate proof, Waad and Channel four have apparently offered cowl for the crimes they dedicated. 

Screenshot from Khaled Iskef documentary on the 2013 River Queiq bloodbath, blamed on the Syrian authorities.

Channel four, media architects of battle

It’s no shock that Channel four has been instrumental within the manufacturing of ‘For Sama’. I’ve extensively documented the channel’s position within the behind-the-scenes administration of different such revisionist tasks on Syria. The White Helmets, one other terrorist-linked entity working in East Aleppo, produced an award successful, Oscar nominated film, ‘Final Males in Aleppo’, which additionally eradicated the presence of extremist fighters and terrorist teams from the battle panorama – decreasing the narrative all the way down to “dangerous Assad” and “good rebels.” 

Channel four had been among the many hidden architects of this manufacturing and had been additionally on the forefront of assist for the White Helmets Nobel Peace Prize nomination whereas this UK/US funded group stands accused of all method of battle crimes by the Syrian individuals who lived below militant-group-occupation throughout Syria. 

‘For Sama’ is an exploitative and nicely packaged instrument of injustice. It’s an try by governments and media within the West to rewrite historical past, to erase their shameful position in sustaining a nine-year battle, in Syria, based mostly on lies and obfuscation of truth.

For those who had been to talk to the Syrian folks in Aleppo who lived by means of the interval lined by ‘For Sama’, they’d let you know that this movie doesn’t symbolize their struggling or abuse by the hands of the armed gangs. They’d let you know that ‘For Sama’ successfully defends those that tortured, imprisoned and subjected them to all method of horror and bloodshed. They’d let you know that ‘For Sama’ is simply one other insult from the billionaire funded PR business for battle that has denied the actual Syrian victims a voice for 9 years whereas those that assist perpetrate the crimes towards them will, as soon as once more, be on Hollywood’s purple carpet. 

Suppose your mates would have an interest? Share this story!