It might be the night before the election, but SBS has something rather different planned for prime time tonight.
It will air a world exclusive interview with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. The Syrian President has overseen a five-year civil war in the country that has killed half a million people and displaced 10 million more. His tactics against rebels have been widely condemned. Malcolm Turnbull has called Assad a murderous tyrant, while Bill Shorten has called him a butcher.
Which begs the question: how did he come to give an exclusive interview to an Australian public broadcaster?
TV news reporter Luke Waters started working at SBS around the time the crisis started and visited refugee camps in Lebanon in 2013. “I was told by a source that the President was open to being interviewed by foreign media — so I first approached the consulate in Sydney,” he told Crikey from Lebanon this morning. “That approach was accompanied by approaches to the Syrian Ministry For Information and Press Offices. As I was never given an outright ‘no’ I sent follow-up emails on a semi-regular basis ever since.”
Assad hasn’t spoken to the media in some months, though for the length of the war, he has popped his head up a few times a year. His last interview was in April with Sputnik, an agency controlled by the Russian government which allowed him plenty of leeway to talk about his war on “terror” in Syria.
An interview with SBS is rather different to that. Waters says it’s difficult to say why Assad agreed. “Perhaps it was a combination of things — a series of annoying emails from an Australian journalist, the fact that we are a dedicated world news broadcaster (which they indicated was appealing) and perhaps even some luck plays into these things. My last email or letter may have come at the time they were considering another round of interviews and therefore my name and SBS was front-of-mind at the right time.”
The interview was held at the President’s Damascus offices. Waters describes it as looking more like a “grand old home” than an office complex, though he and producer Meggie Palmer had to do a pre-interview meeting with press officials at the more modern, imposing palace. It was at this pre-interview meeting that the logistics were nutted out — the time, location, and the like.
“The interview room furnished with just two chairs facing each other and the four cameras were set up ready to begin filming. Make-up was hastily applied and we got underway with a clock set up in my view. We were instructed that the interview was to run 25 minutes.
“There is so much to ask this man I found it difficult covering it all in the allotted time. There are many many more questions I planned to ask but the clock hit the 25-minute mark far too quickly!”
SBS’s interview with Bashar al-Assad airs at 7.30 tonight.
This is more unsubstantiated demonisation of the legitimately elected government of Syria.
This kind of ‘me too’ tabloid journalism is pathetic, and I must say that I’m very disappointed that Crikey would print the so far unsubstantiated claims of war crimes by the Assad Government.
For the record, it’s now been clearly established that the faux Syrian civil war has been fought by US sponsored/supplied proxies including ISIL, and that the US has assisted the invaders, in particular by not conducting an effective air campaign against the ISIL. The Russian air force achieved in 5 months more than the US had achieved in 20 months…go figure.
This criminal intervention in the domestic affairs of a sovereign nation yet again by the US & its proxies is clearly the last stage of the odious Zionist Odid Yinon Plan…and if you don’t know what the hell that evil plan is, then I suggest you look it up.
The corruption of Amnesty International’s reputation of neutrality is best represented in this conflict by their allegation of damning evidence of Assad forces war crimes, has been complete., as has the destruction of the credibility of reports from the US-financed Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. Both organisations have NO-ONE in the battle fields…that’s right, no-one. Amnesty’s claim that a memory stick containing 2000 images of these alleged war crimes smuggled out of Syria in a shoe by an operative known as ‘Caesar’ were more damning evidence of Assad’s guilt, are pure fantasy. When I read the same Amnesty report, the only reference to alleged Syrian Government troops war crimes was a report that soldiers wearing what looked like Syrian Government uniforms, had been witnessed carrying out war crimes. That said, I do not claim that the Assad Government forces have not committed war crimes..after all, they’re confronting barbaric ISIL forces who’vew invaded their country….it’s an all out war, not a freekin’ hockey match.
Regardless, Assad must be included in the peace settlement, and has on many occasions said that if the Syrian people don’t want him as leader, he will step down. Also, and most importantly, the Russian Government has drawn a line in the sand in Syria, and will not be bullied by the US, Zionist controlled warmongers, as Putin’s September 2013 Sochi speech clearly stated. Howeverf, if that war mongering Zionist stooge Clinto is elected US President, this whole thing may go south very quickly, with the whole region going up in flames.
While I accept that the Labor & Liberals have no choice but to toe the US State Department propaganda line – watching Plibersek & her Liberal counterpart mouthing the US talking points on a recent Assad bashing edition of Q&A, was vomit inducing – surely independent media should check the veracity of these allegations before repeating them. If I can dispell them as war-mongering rhetoric, then surely professional journalists should be able.
….and the gas attack on his own people? More American conspiracies I suppose