Bashar Fahmi still missing after nine months
Alhurra Television has released a video (above) to ensure that Alhurra correspondent Bashar Fahmi, who went missing in Aleppo, Syria on Aug. 20, 2012, is not forgotten nine months later.
Fahmi was a part of a group of reporters caught in crossfire in Aleppo, causing the death of one journalist and the capture and subsequent release of another.
“The last nine months have been incredibly difficult on the Bashar’s family and his colleagues. We implore anyone who has any information about Bashar to please come forward,” said Brian Conniff, President of the Middle East Broadcasting Networks, Inc. MBN manages and operates Alhurra TV.
At a protest held in front of the Syrian Consulate in Istanbul on May 14th, Fahmi’s wife Arzu Kadumi plead, “I grow tired of telling the same things over and over again…we can’t get any information about my husband…I am tired in every respect. I want to get information about him.”
The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) reported that Syria was the profession’s deadliest country in 2012, with 28 journalists killed in combat or targeted for murder by government or opposition forces. The CPJ also noted that in 2012 at least 21 local and international journalists were abducted by various sides of the Syrian conflict, including government or pro-government militias; rebel or rebel-affiliated groups; and non-Syrian Islamic extremist groups. Earlier this month the organization issued a statement that “all sides in this conflict must remember that journalists are civilians and must not be targeted for their work.”