SYRIA: Message from the REAL Syria Civil Defence about White Helmet frauds

Jamila Assi
JamilaEyes

This is a translated message from the REAL Syria Civil Defence heroes, Latakia Fire Brigade published this message today, 8th October 2016.

“Before we start, we would like to note that the video at the end of this post is very important, it was broadcasted on RT [covering the White Helmets issue].

Yesterday [October, 07, 2016] was the announcement of the Nobel Peace Prize winner, after the winners in medicine, physics and chemistry had been announced. As you know, The White Helmets (Al Qaeda affiliated and Al Nusra-afffiliated civil defense) were nominated for this award, but did not get it. This organization known as The White Helmets was given tens of millions of dollars to pursue its work, not to mention the donations and crowdfunding campaigns all over the world, in addition to the highest and most developed tools and equipment they were supplied with, way better than the equipment we own.

They were offered huge logistic support (communication devices and foreign coordinators) as well as being introduced to Western and Arab media on the highest levels and through the most popular channels with the support of the biggest production companies specialized in documentaries, one of which is Netflix, and many other specialists in montage and media in general.

This organization was established by a British person, and is mainly supported by UK and USA. It does not have a number that people can reach them through in emergencies, they choose where and when to operate, they choose the missions they want only. Surprisingly enough, this organization that came to exist only two and a half years ago has gained the full support and credibility for Western and Arab community, while Fire Brigades and the REAL Civil Defense forces that have been working in Syria since 1953 were completely marginalized despite all the efforts they have done.

They were called “The White Helmets, the world’s most photogenic rescuers”.

Their work is pure media propaganda, where every worker has a helmet camera with a whole team supplied with cameras. They are considered as a rescue and firefighting team stronger than any media specialized team! However, you cannot but question all their videos and how they’re edited and how all the victims they rescue happen to be only children.

On the other hand, to be honest, when we first heard of those White Helmets and before we knew who they are and who is behind them – and here I talk about myself – we thought that this was a good thing because many of the members of fire brigades and the REAL Syrian civil defense members had been repeatedly targeted, killed and kidnapped from the early days of the Syrian crisis (March, 17, 2011) until now whenever they head to any rescue mission in any area, whether in areas under the control of the Syrian Army or outside its control. We thought that this way every area would have its specialized group that would handle rescue and humanitarian missions regardless of the party that controls that areas.

Unfortunately, their mission turned out not to be humanitarian. They have revealed their real intentions as we have seen them holding arms and participating in executions and abusing prisoners taken by Al-Nusra Front and other terrorist groups. Most of their videos are fabricated, crops can be clearly noticed, and easily one can recognize what was cropped, or what they were attempting to hide. We will provide some examples later.

There were few foreign journalists and reporters, on the top of whom is the British journalist Vanessa Beeley who has visited our brigade as well as other brigades around Syria. Beeley was on various international TV channels and radios because she could not keep silent about this media farce and have repeatedly defended us, in addition to publishing many articles and documentations she has written and posted to reveal the truth.

Few days before the announcement of the Nobel Prize winner, the ICDO (International Civil Defense Organization, Geneva) had replaced the link to the website of the REAL Syrian Civil Defense forces with that of the White Helmets. Beeley contacted them and asked about this suspicious movement, they replied that it was a mistake and will be corrected.

Saying “thank you” is too little, but this is all what we have..

Thank you Vanessa ..

A couple of days ago we have received a message from a girl who lives in the USA, apologizing to us. She apologized because she had just realized who the White Helmets were and because she had donated to them previously; she offered to donate money to us, we thanked her and declined her offer kindly. The best part of her message was:

“I am Korean born in the U.S. but I believe we are all brothers and sisters and we must all care for each other. Thank you for being so brave and selfless and please be careful and take care of yourselves.”

Our national [Syrian] media was silent about this issue, as if this matter did not mean anything to them, except for some Syrian journalists and reporters who published on their personal pages facts about this organization.

We were about to do so some short and documentary films that we have recorded during our missions and never got the chance to publish before, but the massive numbers of fires recently, the injuries we have had, as well as the lack of resources prevented us from completing this project.

One last word.

We have repeatedly called for the establishment of an active media center especially for firefighters, and required providing firefighters with helmet cameras and other necessary tools; not to show off our heroism and work, but to document and evaluate fires and missions, to discover and avoid flaws, to handle emergencies in faster and more effective ways, and to help local media as well.

Unfortunately, no one documents this kind of work in Syria except for us throughout this page. Our work remains very humble as we have one helmet camera that barely functions. If you follow the work of the ‘White Helmets’ you would see the huge material being published, so imagine the amount of the material unpublished yet despite their bad coverage and staged rescue missions most of the time.

In the end, we would like to send our best regards to all comrades in fire brigades and civil defense in Syria, especially Aleppo Fire Brigade for what they have suffered.

May all civilian, military, and firefighter martyrs rest in peace.

Find in the comments on this post some links to some videos and articles relevant to this topic. Unfortunately, many of the videos we were looking for were removed from YouTube because they scandalize the White Helmets.

Watch the RT news feature on the White Helmets: