A group of armed and masked men killed this Friday to the well-known syrian activist Raed Fares, 46, who ran an independent radio station that satirizaba both president Bashar al-Assad and the rebels. He was killed in his hometown of Kafranbel, in Idlib province, the latest of the country that continues to be under control opponent. Close to 60% of the region is in the hands of the powerful militia Hayat Tharir al Sham (linked to Al-Qaeda) while the remaining 40% is the territory of islamists allied to Turkey.
Raed Fares. AP
According to images provided to you via WhatsApp by syrian activists, the shooting shocked Perez in his vehicle with the camera Hamud Yunaid, who also died. The news has shaken the community of syrian activists. This is the ninth killed in the country this year, according to the balance Reporters Without Borders. The messages of condolence in Arabic have flooded the social networks.
Megaphone in hand, activists like Perez personally led the anti-government demonstrations in march 2011 to end up being persecuted by all sides. Many of them have perished in the prisons of the Government and have been the target of the Islamic State and the rebels. “As night falls there is no one on the streets of Idlib [the capital of the same name]. Of day the men of Al-Qaeda controlling the entrances and exits of the city,” says the phone, a young activist who responds to the nickname Abu Alaa and, like the rest, is accused of the murder to the jihadist group.
Neither have missed the Gobahis condolence tweeted in English by foreign journalists, because Pharez was the first to locate on the map the town of Kafranbel, of 15,000 inhabitants. The activist managed to capture the attention of the world to which he directed in English with satirical messages in that charge against the Government of Assad and condemning the inaction of the international community. Like the rest of activists began filming demonstrations with their mobile phones to send images to regional and international media. When 2012 arrived the rebels of the Syrian Army Free to Kafranbel, Perez formed a new youth in the local station. He attended several courses organised by the NGOS western young syrian activists in neighboring Turkey.
In 2013, launched the programme Radio Fresh to on one hand prevent the local population against impending aerial bombardment and, on the other, to give their version to the rest of the world what was happening in Syria. According to an interview published by the american newspaper The New York Times, Perez was selected along with 10 other local media to receive part of the $ 25 million dollars (22 million euros) that alocó the american Administration in Syria.
The voice of Perez was critical as it progressed the war and the rebel factions were expelled from Idlib —around 2.5 million inhabitants— by the islamists, strengthened thanks to the funding coming from the Gulf countries and Turkey. In 2014, two masked men had already tried to kill him at the door of his house. A bullet hit in the back and the other pierced his lung.
Moscow, which supports the Government of Assad, and Ankara, which supports the factions insurrectas in Idlib, have established a zone of demilitarization that the Turkish troops deployed there to monitor to monitor the expulsion of the radical Al-Qaeda and a first phase of disarmament of the rebel groups.
