Syria Sees No Need for Journalists to Investigate Massacre (government only should investigate)

[pampango]

Just hours after a correspondent for Britain’s Channel 4 News filed a video report from the Syrian village of Houla, where dozens of children were killed in a massacre last week, Syria’s ambassador to the United Nations made it clear that his government would not be swayed by witness accounts of the killings gathered by journalists.

Speaking to another reporter for the same British channel at the U.N. headquarters in New York on Wednesday, the ambassador, Bashar Jaafari, called the massacre a “heinous and appalling crime.” But he insisted that there was no need for journalists to go to the village and gather information independently to determine who was responsible for the killings, since the Syrian government was conducting its own investigation.

In a somewhat bizarre exchange (captured in full, about 22 minutes into video posted on the U.N. Web site), Mr. Jaafari pleaded with the Channel 4 News correspondent in New York, Matt Frei, to ignore the work of his colleague in Syria, Alex Thomson, and wait for President Bashar al-Assad’s commission of inquiry to publish its findings later this week. “Don’t base your information on reports,” Mr. Jaafari told the reporter.

When Mr. Frei told the ambassador that his colleague in Syria had just spoken to survivors of the massacre who identified the killers as pro-government militiamen from two neighboring villages, Mr. Jaafari said that rather than producing a video report, Channel 4 News should have conveyed their information directly to the Syrian authorities.

Despite insisting that the world had to wait for the government’s investigation to be completed to find out who was responsible for the massacre, Mr. Jaafari had no reservations in claiming minutes later that the massacre was carried out by opponents of the government.

http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/05/30/syrias-government-sees-no-role-for-journalism-in-massacre-investigation/

Syria's ambassador to the UN seems to already know what the government investigation into the massacre will show.

[ananda]

1. So sad.

Looks as though they're following in our footsteps: you know, fox..hen.