The Role of the BBC in the Syrian Conflict

Much has been said about the impact that social media, such as Twitter and Facebook, have had on the uprisings in the Middle Eastern and North African region, the so-called Arab Springs, to the point that the marketing department in charge of selling these uprisings to the West have dubbed them “the Twitter Revolution”, an expression immediately adopted by compliant mainstream media everywhere. However, if one must give credit where it’s due, we should not underestimate the power of the excellent image editor and manipulator known as Photoshop, and its widespread use in the Arab Spring over the past two years – in particular in the Syrian uprising.

Of course, we all remember the embarrassing image published by Austrian newspaper Krone in July 2012, depicting a couple with child, ostensibly fleeing from the bombing campaign by the Assad Air Force in Syria, which was later revealed to be the photograph of the same family quietly strolling in an uneventful setting, borrowed from the agency Agentur only a few days before. However, in an effort to show Westerners the horrors the Syrian government was subjecting its own citizens to, the BBC had also felt compelled, two months before, to publish the horrifying picture of scores of dead children, supposedly the victims of another massacre perpetrated by the Assad forces. This image turned out to have been taken in a completely different context: it was in fact a picture of dead Iraqi children, taken in 2003 by Italian photographer Marco di Lauro. A so-called “activist” had had no trouble in exploiting the gruesome picture and manipulating it for political purposes, and then sending it to the BBC. Of course, the BBC could have done a Google reverse image search to identify the source of the picture – it would have taken them ten seconds. They could have. But they chose not to, preferring instead to insert a caveat: the image could not be independently verified. Readers and viewers who got outraged at the picture were predictably far more numerous that those who read the BBC’s grovelling apology a little later, so, if the intention was to get the public behind the Syrian uprising, mission accomplished!

Not to be outdone, the Qatari News Agency took this picture, which had apparently been taken in the Balkan wars in the ’90s, and gave it a new life, placing it in 2012 Syria.

Even prior to what is now invariably worded as “the brutal response of a dictator to peaceful anti-government demonstrations” – whatever one might think of this phrase, blatantly pre-packaged for mass consumption in the West – even prior to that, the news network Al-Arabiya thought it a good idea to take this 2005 picture, depicting a pro-Assad demonstration, and turn it into an anti-Assad protest. Not too difficult: it only sufficed to change a few slogans, draw a red cross over Assad’s portrait and voilà! The same Al-Arabiya which, during the initial stage of the conflict, did not hesitate to sell this Russian military jet as a Syrian one.

And, lest we forget, much of this effective manipulation was undertaken by the countless bloggers, tweeters and facebook users, most of whose accounts had been conveniently created just a few days before the uprising, and whose comments – as Al Jazeera admitted in this February 2011 article – “appeared to be from Syrians living abroad”. Well, let’s take a look at what these “Syrian living abroad” did.

A Facebook user variously named “Al-Gazeera”, or “FreeSyrian2012”, thought it a good idea to exploitthe tragic deaths of three girls in Egypt, killed by a snake their own father had bought for that purpose, and recycle the gruesome picture, claiming it showed three girls killed by the Syrian government forces. Just pause for a second, and think of the sheer number of people who clicked on “Like” upon viewing this picture.

When it was necessary to give the West the impression that a large number of Syrians had joined the ranks of the Free Syrian Army, this picture promptly appeared. Except, as it later turned out, it hadn’t been taken in Syria, but Iran, and the Syrian opposition flags had been photoshopped in, among other details. An impressive job, you have to admit.

This picture was taken during the 2009 massacre the Israeli air force perpetrated against the inhabitants of Gaza. It resurfaced a little over two years later in another, inevitable, facebook account. Over 1,000 “Likes” at the time. These North Korean missiles, appeared on a 2009 article on the Daily Telegraph, were given a new life as Syrian missiles in another blog, much like this US helicopter, shot down in Afghanistan in 2010, and resurrected in Syria two years later, this Iraqi aircraft – thanks to a facebook blogger going by the name Tabaneh, and this image from the Gaza bombings, which another blogger transferred to Syria.

One of the first appearances of the official flag of the Opposition was in this rather harmless context of Turkish football fans. After a little make-over, of course!

Spot the difference.

After that, it was just everywhere. Even this stunt, performed by the so-called “Egyptian Flagman”, became a Syrian rebel statement after some blogger had finished with him.

Let’s face it: so many of the pictures which outraged scores of armchair activists and helped sell the Syrian uprising to the West were similar, cheap and tacky fakes. Let’s take a look at some of our most beloved moments.

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