Satellite TV and social media played an important part in the Syrian revolution, in the making of the Syrian revolution and managing the Syrian revolution. And there were positive and negative effects that satellite TV and social media had. The positive effect is that they allow networking. I mean, the entire revolution was planned using Facebook. It was covered. And we ensured that the international community knows about every violation that´s taken place through YouTube.
Twitter helped us spread knowledge to a wider section of the population all over the world, of decision makers all over the world. Without these kinds of technologies, I really don´t see that we would have known as much about what was happening inside Syria. I think the blockade established by [Syrian President Bashar] Assad on information in Syria would have succeeded. But we´ve managed to break these blockades through a smart use of social media technology.
Satellite TV then moved in, allowed rebroadcast of these videos and allowed people all over the world to know what´s really happening all through Syria. I mean, people in Damascus, at one point, had no idea that the situation was so bloody in Aleppo [the largest city in Syria and the capital of the Aleppo Governorate] or Daraa [a city in southwestern Syria, near the border with Jordan] or elsewhere without satellite TV and YouTube that were presented by activists at tremendous risks of their lives. And many of them died, in fact, trying to capture these YouTube [videos].
Without that combination, that marriage between social media and satellite TV, even Syrians would not have known, really, about the revolution. That was at least one part of the promise that we made to the Syrian people that we kept is that people would immediately know about the suffering, you know, that the international community cannot feign ignorance. No one will be ignorant or will have the luxury to feign ignorance about what was happening. That was really social media and satellite TV helped us with this.
Now, the negative aspect is that it also allowed for the regime to spew its sectarian venom, by also orchestrating videos of abuse of detainees, in which the sectarian character of the abuser and the abuse was clearly shown and by taking these videos and leaking them to activists. And activists, of course, had to share them. By doing that, by sharing these videos along these lines the sectarian sentiments were being introduced into the scene or being manipulated by the regime. And social media allowed for that. Satellite TV allowed for that.
The misinformation campaigns that occasionally take place also allows you know, there was no time to sometimes do fact checking. So some lies can be always filtered through or infused through the campaigns that you are waging as activists. And that undermines, sometimes, the credibility of some of the reports that we were trying to do.
So you can see, therefore, there was the marriage of satellite TV and social media have had a good role to play in the beginning. It allowed the revolution to happen. It created the awareness necessary for this revolution to happen. It created awareness of the revolution, of its realities. But then, as the struggle dragged on and on, it allowed for extremist forces to emerge, to hijack the cause.
Ammar Abdulhamid is a Syrian human rights activist who in 2003 founded the Tharwa Foundation, a grassroots organization that enlists local activists and citizen journalists to document conditions in Syria. In response to his activities, the Syrian government subjected Abdulhamid to repeat interrogation and threats. In September 2005, he and his family were forced into exile in the United States. From his home in Maryland, Abdulhamid remains one of the leading bloggers and commentators on events in Syria through the Syrian Revolution Digest.
Follow Ammar Ahbdulhamid on Twitter @Tharwacolamus and on his blog, Syrian Revolution Digest.
The Syrian Arab Republic originated as a secular, socialist state dominated by the Ba’ath party, an Arab nationalist movement. The state has since evolved into an autocracy headed by a single family and dominated by members of the minority Alawite sect, a branch of Shia Islam.
The Ba’ath Party took power in Syria in a series of coups d’état in the 1960s and 1970s. One of the leaders of those coups, Hafez al-Assad, became president in 1971 and led the country until his death in 2000. Under Assad, Alawites assumed control over the state security forces. In 1982, Assad’s forces stormed the city of Hama to brutally suppress a Sunni rebellion, killing thousands of civilians.
Following the death of Hafez al-Assad, his son, Bashar al-Assad, was elected president by a referendum in which he ran unopposed, officially garnering 97 percent of the vote. He was reelected in 2007, again with 97 percent of the vote.
The Syrian government is one of the world’s most brutal and restrictive. From 1963 to 2011, the government operated under an “Emergency Law,” which suspended many constitutional protections of civil liberties. The government continues to use arbitrary detention and torture against political opponents, and operates through an extensive internal security apparatus, including secret police. The government controls most of the country’s media outlets, and access to the Internet is permitted only through state-operated servers. The minority Kurdish population has been continually discriminated against and repressed.
Influenced by movements in Egypt and Tunisia, large opposition protests took place across Syria in 2011. The government responded with a harsh crackdown. Security forces fired on protestors, killing thousands. The crackdown led the Arab League to suspend Syria’s membership. The Assad regime attempted to appease dissenters through a series of low-level and largely inconsequential reforms in 2011 and 2012. However, the conflict has escalated into full-fledged civil war with both liberal and Islamic militias being formed to fight against the Assad regime. The Assad regime has continued to attempt to defeat the opposition using air strikes and heavy artillery to attack rebel-held neighborhoods. Freedoms of association, assembly, and the press were restricted even further as the government attempted to quell the uprising. Over a million people have been either internally displaced or fled the country as refugees.
In the summer of 2013, it was confirmed that the Syrian government had used chemical weapons to attack civilians. Over 600 people were killed in one such attack in the Ghouta suburb of Damascus using a nerve agent confirmed to be sarin. The Assad regime’s use of chemical weapons drew international attention and resulted in a renewed international focus on the nation and its civil conflict.
Freedom House rates Syria as “not free” noting that conditions even prior to the 2011 uprising and subsequent civil war were, at best, abysmal. It earned the worst possible ratings of seven in both the political rights and civil liberties categories. Conditions since the 2011 uprising have only deteriorated, and civil freedoms are restricted under the fear of violence. Freedom House has also expressed concern over rising sectarian tensions and massive displacement.