Political groups in the US purporting to represent the antiwar movement are touring Eva Bartlett calling her an “independent journalist” even though she travels with Assad officials & Syrian military security.

This post is from Pakistani journalist Usman A Khan Tahir about the Syrian & other journalists reporting from within east Aleppo primarily via social media & who represent the voices of popular opposition to Assad’s dictatorship:
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For those who say: “There are no journalists in east Aleppo.”

Just with the team OGN (On the Ground News) alone there are three English speaking journalists: Bilal Abdul Kareem, Abdussamad Dagül (he even speaks German and Turkish) and Muhammad Al-Ghazi.

Furthermore, there are Syrian journalists and citizen journalists inside east Aleppo, who are regularly keeping us updated from there.

There’s Lena al-Shamy. Is she a “jihadist” or part of the MSM propaganda that some of you keep blabbering about? She exists, she’s there and keeping us updated, and that too in English.

There’s Zouhir Al-Shimale, he’s another Syrian journalist from besieged Aleppo who speaks English and is keeping us updated. He’s neither a “jihadist” nor a MSM propagandist. He also exists.

There’s Monther Etaky, a citizen journalist from besieged Aleppo who also speaks English, and guess what? He exists.

There’s Rami Zien, a Syrian journalist fluent in English and reporting at the risk of his own life from besieged Aleppo. He also exists.

There’s Mr Alhamdo, a teacher, activist and a reporter from inside east Aleppo who also speaks English, and he also exists.

There are many others who are reporting in Arabic, like Mojahed Abu Joud and others.

So please tell me how many RT reporters are inside besieged Aleppo? While you are it, please let me know if your favorite “independent journalist” or should I say regime propagandist, Eva Bartlett, has ever been inside besieged territory. She claims she has been to Syria many times and that Syrians love Assad, but has never been inside rebel-held territory or besieged territories like Madaya, Daraya and East Aleppo.

It is so deeply disturbing to read the posts of Assadists celebrating the “liberation” of east Aleppo. It’s difficult to characterize their politics because they posture & truly believe themselves to be humanitarian. But their absolute disregard for the lives of Syrian civilians sustaining unspeakable trauma is bone-chilling.

East Aleppo has endured over five years of carpet bombing with barrel bombs filled with chlorine; are without food & water or medical care & have lived underground for years. Now they are being evacuated to uncertain fate at the hands of the Assad regime, with reports the men will be forcibly conscripted, executed, or sent to Assad’s notorious gulag.

Any documentation of all this, no matter how compelling, is mocked by Assadists as fake news–especially videos & testimony of terrified civilians in east Aleppo. They laugh heartily at the claim by Assad officials that the White Helmets were nowhere to be found in east Aleppo & were only a media invention. They scoff at fears expressed by Syrians of retribution by the Syrian Army & hail that army as freedom fighters. They hold nothing sacred, including war-traumatized children, the elderly, infirm, disabled, & defenseless waiting for the apocalypse to arrive. The entire horror faced by civilians in Aleppo is all just material for mockery, scorn, contempt, & a bone-deep racism.

One Assadist called Assad “beloved” & wrote “Ode to Joy” on the liberation of Aleppo: “Syria, Mother of civilization, Beethoven applauds you. Friedrich Schiller applauds you. Humanity applauds you.” If that isn’t evocative of the Reichstag, then it’s a symptom of mental derangement.

Meanwhile Fares Shehabi, the Assad official governing Aleppo, has repeatedly posted on his social media pages that “Our revenge has just begun” & boasted that “more than 726 Saudi jihadi pigs (were) killed in Aleppo under the NATO label of moderate Syrian rebel.” He’s playing his Assadist disciples like a fiddle.

This is a photo of Syrian soldiers near the ancient Umayyad mosque in the old city of Aleppo. Even if you support the Assad dictatorship, does it seem appropriate to be mocking, scoffing, laughing, & applauding this kind of destruction? Even Robert Fisk who shares the racism of other Assadists toward Arabs & Muslims expressed concern about the destruction of ancient architectural treasures.

(Photo by George Ourfalian/AFP/Getty Images)