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Propaganda & censorship alert: NATO countries' media coverage of the elections in Syria
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.
Propaganda & censorship alert: NATO countries' media coverage of the elections in Syria
compiled by Cem Ertür
7 June 2014
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.
The Independent, 4 June 2014
excerpt from: Syria election: The barrel bomb and the ballot box - how Bashar al-Assad held on to power
Robert Fisk witnesses Assad's paper victory amid a bloody war
It's really all a question of
proportion. Field Marshal Sisi's 93.7 per cent presidential electoral
victory in
Egypt last week must surely be outshone by Bashar al-Assad today,
albeit that the skies of Damascus were filled with howling fighter jets
and the thump of explosions as its citizens shouted and danced - I kid
thee not - outside the voting booths. Two dull and obedient
politicians, one a former minister - both born losers - were added to
the hitherto one-man presidential voting list for the first time in
Baathist history, so when I asked the Syrian foreign minister, Walid
Moallam, if there was any danger of Bashar losing, he wisely replied:
“This is up to the Syrian people.”
Ah indeed, the Syrian people. Crushed, humiliated, tortured, imprisoned, slaughtered, forever crying for freedom from terror - note how these words of tragedy are used by both sides against each other in Syria's agony - they were invited to participate, at the height of their agony, in a little lesson in Middle East democracy. Sixty per cent of the population was able to vote in the 40 per cent of Syria firmly controlled by the regime, in more than 9,000 voting stations, most of which were vulnerable to the gunfire of Bashar's largely Western-supported opponents.
These rebel forces, fading secularists, frightening Islamists - groups so fractured that they look like a broken windscreen - promised a rain of rocket-fire into the country's cities to destroy an election which American and European leaders had condemned as a farce. From dawn, mortars and rockets crashed into central Damascus - until Bashar's Mig fighter jets swept over town and blasted their suburbs and all within them in the most persuasive form of electoral violence suppression in the history of democracy.
Ah indeed, the Syrian people. Crushed, humiliated, tortured, imprisoned, slaughtered, forever crying for freedom from terror - note how these words of tragedy are used by both sides against each other in Syria's agony - they were invited to participate, at the height of their agony, in a little lesson in Middle East democracy. Sixty per cent of the population was able to vote in the 40 per cent of Syria firmly controlled by the regime, in more than 9,000 voting stations, most of which were vulnerable to the gunfire of Bashar's largely Western-supported opponents.
These rebel forces, fading secularists, frightening Islamists - groups so fractured that they look like a broken windscreen - promised a rain of rocket-fire into the country's cities to destroy an election which American and European leaders had condemned as a farce. From dawn, mortars and rockets crashed into central Damascus - until Bashar's Mig fighter jets swept over town and blasted their suburbs and all within them in the most persuasive form of electoral violence suppression in the history of democracy.
Wall Street Journal, 4 June 2014
excerpt from: Syria Voters Celebrate Assad
Government
supporters stuffed
ballot boxes and staged rallies inside polling stations in an election
that
President Bashar al-Assad
is
expected to use as a mandate to prosecute the civil war.
Opponents of the regime inside and
outside the country have dismissed Tuesday's presidential vote, held
amid a
raging civil war, as a parody of democracy.
The nearly 40-month conflict
continued unabated during voting, with the sky above Damascus filled
with the
buzz of military aircraft bombing rebel-held suburbs.
The mood in the country was a
mixture of fear, intimidation and exuberance.
The election was held only in
regime-held areas, while large swaths of the country under rebel
control didn't
participate.
At polling stations in the capital
Damascus and its suburbs, Assad
supporters were allowed to cast handfuls of ballots for absent family
members
as election workers looked on.
La Croix, 4 June 2014
Syria abandoned to the war
Syrians in the zones controlled by the Regime have voted yesterday for the presidential election. After more than three years of war, the conflict is currently bogged down, almost forgotten
Yeni Safak, 4 June 2014
People cast [their votes] in the dustbin
The election parody began in Syria, where 160,000 people have lost their lives since 2011. The smartly-dressed Assad couple who went to vote at a school in Damascus were cheerful. Meanwhile, artists boycotted the elections, which have not been recognised by the opposition and the West, by painting “[Bashar], this is where you belong” on rubbish containers and throwing their votes in them.
Washington Post, 4 June 2014
excerpt from: Syrian election sends powerful signal of Assad’s control
Syrians voted on in a tightly controlled
election Tuesday that
reinforced President Bashar al-Assad’s tenacious hold on
power,
underscoring the failure of U.S. policies aimed at inducing him to step
down. Three years after Assad’s brutal suppression of
nationwide
protests plunged Syria into a vicious civil war, the election seems
certain to deliver him a third seven-year term in office, defying
President Obama’s 2011 call for him to “step
aside.”
Le Monde, 5 June 2014
Syria: Assad launches chlorine attacks, the West remains silent
• Paris has proof of the use of this banned weapon, while Damascus should be dismantling its chemical arsenal
• The Western countries do not want to get involved, given their failed attempt to retaliate to the sarin gas attacks in summer 2013
Radikal, 6 June 2014
excerpt from: Cooperation with the US over the Syria war
The ‘foreign fighters’
in Syria, […] who are likely
to organise al-Qaida activities in their home countries upon return,
are at the center of an operation which is likely to be the largest
security/intelligence cooperation in the world recently. Apart from
Turkey and the US, numerous [other] NATO countries, including Britain,
France, Spain, Germany, Netherlands and even Norway, are taking part in
this joint operation. It appears that Istanbul will be the command
center of this operation.
___________________________________
Related articles:
Syrians mark real D-Day victory
by Finian Cunningham, Press TV, 7 June 2014
The Syrian People Have Spoken
by Thierry Meyssan, Voltaire Network, 6 June 2014
Elections in Syria: The People Say No to Foreign Intervention
by Ajamu Baraka, Black Agenda Report, 4 June 2014
Elections in Syria: Washington Pressured Several Countries to Prevent Syrian Expats from Voting
by Stephen Lendman, Global Research, 4 June 2014
Western focus on ‘delegitimizing’ Syria election
by Sharmine Narwani, RT News, 4 June 2014
Syrian Refugees in Lebanon Vote in Presidential Elections. Massive Support for Assad
by Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya, Global Research, 3 June 2014
Is Washington Planning a Terrorist Operation against Syria in the Wake of the Elections?
by Prof Michel Chossudovsky, Global Research, 3 June 2014
___________________________________
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