One of the Assad regime's most prominent British defenders is due to speak at a music-and-politics festival sponsored by several trade unions later this month.
Vanessa Beeley, whose misleading reports about the Syrian conflict have turned her into a social media celebrity, will be...
Blog archive: Syria
-
7th May 2018
-
3rd May 2018One spin-off from the Syrian conflict has been a war of words that reaches far beyond the Middle East. It’s a battle in which honest reporting and the search for truth have come under sustained attack. Those leading the attack claim they are simply asking questions that need to be asked. It’...
-
22nd April 2018There's a claim circulated endlessly on the internet that the conflict in Syria is a "regime change war" orchestrated by western powers. As far as many of the Assad regime's defenders are concerned, this is established fact. To quote one of them – Piers Robinson, writing for the Open...
-
21st April 2018Look up Ian56 on Twitter and the first thing you'll see is a fake photograph. The handsome man in the profile picture isn't Ian56. It's a 38-year-old fashion model called David Gandy. This, plus the fact that Ian56 is a staunch defender of Russia who posts on average 65 tweets a day may have...
-
20th April 2018Yesterday dozens of Twitter users rallied to the defence of "Sarah Abdallah", a mysterious and possibly fictitious social media celebrity, following what they saw as a smear by the BBC. A BBC report had identified the @sahouraxo Twitter account – currently operated under the name "Sarah...
-
16th April 2018I got into an online discussion yesterday with Charles Shoebridge, an ex-soldier and former police officer who disputes the use of chemical weapons by the Syrian regime. One of the questions he asked was why, if the regime was making chemical weapons in secret, it would give the game away by...
-
15th April 2018A university-based group is seeking funds for what it claims will be "rigorous academic research and analysis of propaganda". The project sounds academically respectable – it has official recognition from the University of Sheffield in Britain and has enlisted the famous American professor ...
-
12th April 2018The use of chemical weapons in Syria threatens to wreck one of the most successful examples of international cooperation. Step-by-step work over the years has resulted in at least 80% of the world's known stockpiles of chemical weapons being destroyed, and efforts are continuing to destroy...
-
19th March 2018A group of university professors who claim to be engaged in "rigorous academic analysis" of propaganda during the Syrian conflict have recruited a 9/11 truther to their team. Mark Crispin Miller, professor of media studies at New York University, rejects what he calls "the official narrative...
-
18th March 2018A group of university professors who promoted conspiracy theories about chemical weapons in Syria are now making similar claims about the recent chemical attack in Britain which critically injured Russian double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter. The "Working Group on Syria, Propaganda...
-
15th March 2018There's something uncannily familiar about Russia's propaganda antics over the poisoning of double agent Sergei Skripal in Britain. We've seen them before in Syria where Russia has steadfastly defended the Assad regime against accusations of using chemical weapons. On an August morning in...
-
6th March 2018The newly-formed "Working Group on Syria, Propaganda and Media" – which I wrote about last month – has added some further names to its list of members and advisers. The group claims to be promoting "rigorous academic analysis" of propaganda in the Syrian conflict and says it aims to "provide a...
