NATO countries' media coverage of the elections in Syria

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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.










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.



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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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