{"article":{"id":264523,"heading":"Propaganda & censorship alert: NATO countries' media coverage of the elections in Syria","author":"Cem Ert\u00fcr","created":"2014-06-08 11:20:37","modified":"2014-06-08 11:20:37","last_modified":"Sun, 08 Jun 2014 18:20:37","article":"



Propaganda\r\n& censorship alert: NATO countries' media coverage of the\r\nelections in Syria

<\/span>
\r\ncompiled by Cem Ertür

\r\n7 June 2014






\r\nThe June 3\r\npresidential\r\nelection in Syria was a massive defeat for the NATO countries which\r\nhave been collectively waging a genocidal war on Syria since 2011.\r\nApart few exceptions, this momentous event was conspicuously\r\nabsent\r\nfrom the front pages of US, British, French, German,\r\nItalian and Turkish newspapers. Those few\r\nthat reported it on the front page did so in the habitual propaganda\r\nformat. Meanwhile, few others went as far as publishing\r\nanti-Syria propaganda reports on their\r\nfront page without making any reference to the presidential election.\r\n








\r\nThe Independent, 4 June 2014



\r\nexcerpt from:  Syria\r\nelection: The barrel bomb and the ballot box - how Bashar al-Assad held\r\non to power

\r\n           \r\n         Robert Fisk\r\nwitnesses Assad's paper victory amid a bloody war



<\/span>\r\n
It's really all a question of\r\nproportion. Field Marshal Sisi's 93.7 per cent presidential electoral\r\nvictory in\r\nEgypt last week must surely be outshone by Bashar al-Assad today,\r\nalbeit that the skies of Damascus were filled with howling fighter jets\r\nand the thump of explosions as its citizens shouted and danced - I kid\r\nthee not - outside the voting booths. Two dull and obedient\r\npoliticians, one a former minister - both born losers - were added to\r\nthe hitherto one-man presidential voting list for the first time in\r\nBaathist history, so when I asked the Syrian foreign minister, Walid\r\nMoallam, if there was any danger of Bashar losing, he wisely replied:\r\n“This is up to the Syrian people.”
<\/span>
\r\nAh indeed, the Syrian people. Crushed, humiliated, tortured,\r\nimprisoned, slaughtered, forever crying for freedom from terror - note\r\nhow these words of tragedy are used by both sides against each other in\r\nSyria's agony - they were invited to participate, at the height of\r\ntheir agony, in a little lesson in Middle East democracy. Sixty per\r\ncent of the population was able to vote in the 40 per cent of Syria\r\nfirmly controlled by the regime, in more than 9,000 voting stations,\r\nmost of which were vulnerable to the gunfire of Bashar's largely\r\nWestern-supported opponents.
<\/span>
\r\nThese rebel forces, fading secularists, frightening Islamists - groups\r\nso fractured that they look like a broken windscreen - promised a rain\r\nof rocket-fire into the country's cities to destroy an election which\r\nAmerican and European leaders had condemned as a farce. From dawn,\r\nmortars and rockets crashed into central Damascus - until Bashar's Mig\r\nfighter jets swept over town and blasted their suburbs and all within\r\nthem in the most persuasive form of electoral violence suppression in\r\nthe history of democracy.
<\/span><\/div>\r\n









\r\nWall Street Journal, 4 June 2014



\r\nexcerpt from:  Syria Voters Celebrate\r\nAssad<\/span>



<\/span>\r\n
Government\r\nsupporters stuffed\r\nballot boxes and staged rallies inside polling stations in an election\r\nthat\r\nPresident Bashar al-Assad<\/span>\r\nis\r\nexpected to use as a mandate to prosecute the civil war.<\/span>\r\nOpponents of the regime inside and\r\noutside the country have dismissed Tuesday's presidential vote, held\r\namid a\r\nraging civil war, as a parody of democracy.<\/span>\r\nThe nearly 40-month conflict\r\ncontinued unabated during voting, with the sky above Damascus filled\r\nwith the\r\nbuzz of military aircraft bombing rebel-held suburbs.<\/span>\r\nThe mood in the country was a\r\nmixture of fear, intimidation and exuberance.<\/span>\r\nThe election was held only in\r\nregime-held areas, while large swaths of the country under rebel\r\ncontrol didn't\r\nparticipate.<\/span>\r\nAt polling stations in the capital\r\nDamascus and its suburbs, Assad<\/span>\r\nsupporters were allowed to cast handfuls of ballots for absent family\r\nmembers\r\nas election workers looked on.<\/span><\/span><\/div>\r\n









\r\nLa Croix, 4 June 2014



Syria\r\nabandoned to the war<\/span>

\r\nSyrians in the zones controlled by the Regime have voted\r\nyesterday for the presidential election. After more than three years of\r\nwar, the conflict is currently bogged down, almost forgotten










Yeni\r\nSafak, 4 June 2014



People\r\ncast [their votes] in the\r\ndustbin<\/span>

\r\nThe election parody began in Syria, where 160,000 people have lost\r\ntheir lives since 2011. The smartly-dressed Assad couple who went to\r\nvote at a school in Damascus were cheerful. Meanwhile, artists\r\nboycotted the elections, which have not been recognised by the\r\nopposition and\r\nthe West, by painting “[Bashar], this is where you\r\nbelong”\r\non rubbish\r\ncontainers and throwing their votes in them.










\r\nWashington Post, 4 June 2014



\r\nexcerpt from:  Syrian\r\nelection sends powerful signal of Assad’s control



<\/span>\r\n
Syrians voted on in a tightly controlled\r\nelection Tuesday that\r\nreinforced President Bashar al-Assad’s tenacious hold on\r\npower,\r\nunderscoring the failure of U.S. policies aimed at inducing him to step\r\ndown. Three years after Assad’s brutal suppression of\r\nnationwide\r\nprotests plunged Syria into a vicious civil war, the election seems\r\ncertain to deliver him a third seven-year term in office, defying\r\nPresident Obama’s 2011 call for him to “step\r\naside.”
<\/span><\/div>\r\n









\r\nLe Monde, 5 June 2014



Syria:\r\nAssad launches chlorine\r\nattacks, the West remains silent<\/span>

\r\n•  Paris has proof of the use of this banned\r\nweapon, while Damascus\r\nshould be dismantling its chemical arsenal

\r\n•  The\r\nWestern countries do not want to get involved, given their failed\r\nattempt to retaliate to the sarin gas attacks in summer 2013\r\n










\r\nRadikal, 6 June 2014



\r\nexcerpt from:  Cooperation with the US\r\nover the Syria\r\nwar<\/span>



<\/span>\r\n
The ‘foreign fighters’\r\nin Syria, […] who are likely\r\nto organise al-Qaida activities in their home countries upon return,\r\nare at the center of an operation which is likely to be the largest\r\nsecurity\/intelligence cooperation in the world recently. Apart from\r\nTurkey and the US, numerous [other] NATO countries, including Britain,\r\nFrance, Spain, Germany, Netherlands and even Norway, are taking part in\r\nthis joint operation. It appears that Istanbul will be the command\r\ncenter of this operation.
<\/span><\/div>\r\n


\r\n___________________________________



Related\r\narticles:<\/span>


Syrians\r\nmark real D-Day victory \r\n

\r\nby Finian Cunningham, Press TV, 7 June 2014\r\n



The\r\nSyrian People Have\r\nSpoken 

\r\nby Thierry Meyssan, Voltaire Network, 6\r\nJune 2014\r\n



Elections in Syria: The People Say No\r\nto Foreign Intervention\r\n

\r\nby Ajamu Baraka, Black Agenda Report, 4\r\nJune 2014



Elections\r\nin Syria: Washington Pressured Several Countries to Prevent Syrian\r\nExpats from\r\nVoting 

\r\nby Stephen Lendman, Global Research, 4 June\r\n2014\r\n



Western\r\nfocus on ‘delegitimizing’ Syria election \r\n

\r\nby Sharmine Narwani, RT News, 4 June 2014<\/span>



Syrian Refugees in Lebanon Vote in\r\nPresidential Elections.\r\nMassive Support for Assad \r\n

\r\nby Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya, Global\r\nResearch, 3 June 2014



Is Washington Planning a Terrorist\r\nOperation against Syria in\r\nthe Wake of the Elections?

\r\nby Prof Michel Chossudovsky, Global Research, 3 June 2014\r\n


\r\n___________________________________\r\n<\/span>\r\n<\/div>\n","contact":"cem.ertur@gmail.com","link":"https:\/\/www.indybay.org\/newsitems\/2014\/06\/07\/18757056.php","address":"","phone":"","parent_id":0,"mime_type":"text\/html","summary":"The June 3 presidential election in Syria was a massive defeat for the NATO countries which have been collectively waging a genocidal war on Syria since 2011. Apart few exceptions, this momentous event was conspicuously absent from the front pages of US, British, French, German, Italian and Turkish newspapers. Those few that reported it on the front page did so in the habitual propaganda format. Meanwhile, few others went as far as publishing anti-Syria propaganda reports on their front page without making any reference to the presidential election. \r\n\r\n","numcomment":0,"fileurl":"\/uploads\/","filesize":null,"article_url":"\/news\/2014\/06\/264523.php"},"attachments":[],"comments":[]}