Edith Bouvier

A hard slog with low-life smugglers is a small price for avoiding Syrian forces. By Paul Wood

A report on the first anniversary of the Syrian uprising

Weeks of sporadic protests seeking government reform burst into full-fledged unrest on March 15, 2011, when thousands of demonstrators gathered in four Syrian cities. Within days, authorities had cut off news media access to Daraa, a center of the unrest, beginning a sustained effort to shut down international news coverage of the uprising and the government's increasingly violent crackdown. As the civilian death toll has reached well into the thousands, according to U.N. figures, the last four months have taken a particularly dark turn for the press. Eight local and international journalists have been killed on duty since November, at least five in circumstances that raise questions about government culpability. Yet one year after the Syrian uprising began, killing the messenger has not silenced the message.

New York, March, 1, 2012--The Committee to Protect Journalists welcomes the news that two French journalists injured in Homs last week have reached safety in Lebanon. "We are relieved that Edith Bouvier and William Daniels are now safe but are concerned that the Syrian government's assault on Homs has made it impossible to retrieve the bodies of our colleagues Marie Colvin and  Rémi Ochlik," said Mohamed Abdel Dayem, CPJ's Middle East and North Africa program coordinator. "We remain deeply concerned for the safety of all Syrian journalists who are risking their lives to report on the unrest across the country."

New York, February 28, 2012--British photographer Paul Conroy, wounded last week during a mortar attack on the central city of Homs, was evacuated on Tuesday, according to his newspaper, The Sunday Times, and news reports. 

New York, February, 24, 2012--The Committee to Protect Journalists supports efforts by the international community to impose an immediate cease-fire in Syria to allow for the safe delivery of humanitarian aid and a cessation of hostilities. Two journalists injured in Wednesday's Homs attack require urgent medical attention and evacuation. The bodies of two more journalists have also been trapped in Homs since they were killed on Wednesday.

New York, February 23, 2012--The Committee to Protect Journalists demands that Syrian authorities allow safe passage for the evacuation of four foreign journalists trapped in the besieged city of Homs, along with the bodies of Marie Colvin and Rémi Ochlik, two journalists killed in intense government shelling on Wednesday.

In this video posted to YouTube by a Syrian activist, injured Le Figaro reporter Edith Bouvier and Sunday Times photographer William Daniels speak from Homs along with the local doctor who has been treating them. They are pleading with the world to make the barrage of rockets stop and to allow Bouvier to get urgent medical care. They speak in Arabic, English, and French.

Click here for Paul Conroy's appeal video.

New York, February 23, 2012--Syrian authorities must allow urgent medical aid to reach journalists wounded in the government shelling of Homs on Wednesday, and they must allow immediate evacuation of the dead and injured, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today.