Marie Colvin’s Death In Syria

• February 23rd, 2012
• Posted by EUEditor

“No-one here can understand how the international community can let this happen”, Marie Colvin, Homs, 21.2.12.

The American, Sunday Times journalist Marie Colvin, 56,  was killed along with the independent French photojournalist Remi Ochlik, 28,and a Syrian insurgency member, during  shelling of the city of Homs on Wednesday.

Interviewed from there for radio, not long before, she described as “sickening” the random attacks on suburbs by the Syrian government army.

She had joined groups of correspondents going into the area, a stronghold of the opposition to the government of Bashar al-Assad, to seek confirmation of reports of atrocity against citizens.

Marie Colvin was a veteran of reporting in conflict zones, losing an eye during the civil war if Sri Lanka in 2001.

The International Federation of Journalists condemned the shelling attacks in Syria, saying the deaths of the correspondents were caused by a rocket fired into a building they had occupied – believed to have been used as an impromptu media centre or gathering-point for outside media.

The President of the IFJ, Jim Boumelha, said, “the situation in Homs is becoming increasingly difficult for journalists and we are concerned by its impact on independent reporting on the conflict.”

“We will hold the authorities to their international obligations to protect journalists who are in Homs and other Syrian cities”, he said.

The Syrian authorities have pressed on with violent action to suppress the mass citizens’ campaign that began with demands for democratic reforms, during the “Arab Spring” of 2011.

They received encouragement with the failure of a sanctions resolution at the United Nations Security Council (4.2.12), with the governments of China and Russia (old friends of the regime from Cold War days) opposing a double veto – invoking the preservation of “state sovereignty.”

See EUAustralia Online: “Mixed happenings”, 4.6.11; “EU focus on violence i n Syria”, 29.4.11; “A weekend for modern-day tensions …”, 24.4.11; “Syria: call for peace terms”, 31.3.11.

Reference

IFJ, Brussels, “IFJ Condemns Killing of Two Journalists in Syria”, media release, 22.2.12.

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