Syracuse University Filmmaker Killed in Syria
By MICHAEL SCHWIRTZ
Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
Bassel Al Shahade, a Syrian filmmaker taking a leave from from a fine arts degree program at Syracuse University, was killed in Homs, Syria.
A Syrian filmmaker, who took a leave of absence from a fine arts degree program at Syracuse University to cover the carnage in his native country, was killed while filming in the war-ravaged city of Homs, the university’s chancellor said in a statement on Tuesday.
The chancellor said that the filmmaker, Bassel Al Shahade, died on Monday “while working as a citizen journalist and filming the attacks against the Syrian people by the government security forces there.”
Thousands have been killed in the 15-month-old uprising against Syria’s president, Bashar al-Assad, and government forces have shown no sign of backing off a punishing military campaign to bring rebel cities to heel. Last weekend, over 100 villagers, many of them children, were massacred in Houla, a rebel-controlled village. As my colleague Neil MacFarquhar reported on Tuesday, the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights announced that most of the victims were summarily executed in their homes.
Mr. Bashar’s government has severely restricted coverage of the unfolding conflict, making major international new outlets heavily reliant on the work of citizen journalists and freelancers, like Mr. Shahade, who have risked their lives trying to cover the bloodshed. Several have been killed in the fighting. And this month, Reporters Without Borders reported that a citizen journalist named Mohammed Abdelmawla al-Hariri was sentenced to death for treason in Syria after giving an interview to Al Jazeera.
The reports are often amateurish and one-sided, short clips captured shakily on a cellphone amid the chaos of an artillery strike and later uploaded to YouTube. In at least a few cases, clips have been blatantly embellished.
Mr. Shahade, 28, was different from most in that he could have easily stayed safely out of reach of the rockets and bullets that daily pound rebel Syrian cities. He was a Fulbright scholar pursuing a Master of Fine Arts degree in film at the College of Visual and Performing Arts at Syracuse University.
But as protests broke out in the spring of 2011, he felt compelled to join them, according to those who knew him.
“He told me, ‘I couldn’t be away when the revolution is happening. I needed to come back. You can always study later,’ ” Rima Marrouch, a correspondent for NPR who has spoken with Mr. Shahade, said in a report on “All Things Considered” on Tuesday.
As the world has haggled over how or whether to stop the violence, Mr. Shahade helped narrow the lens with reports and documentaries on the personal struggles, tragedies and triumphs of those caught in its grip.
Even before the uprising in Syria, he tended to train his camera on the small victims of injustice, as in this artfully produced film called “Saturday Morning Gift,” based on interviews with a boy who survived the 2006 war between Israel and Lebanon.
The circumstances of Mr. Shahade’s death remain murky.
NPR quoted a friend named Hassan who said he was with Mr. Shahade when troops started shelling their location in Homs.
“I stayed back to lock my car. I saw the first shell fall. Then the second. We took Bassel and the others to the field hospital, but the doctor said they were already dead. They had shrapnel everywhere,” Hassan said in the interview.
A video later emerged purportedly showing a raucous funeral for Mr. Shahade and three others. As the crowd chants wildly, the bodies, shrouded in white, are carried through the streets in the dark of night.
More video: http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/05/30/syracuse-university-filmmaker-reportedly-killed-in-syria/
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