The Russian Misinformation Campaign on Houla Massacre | The-Syrian

It is clear that Russian-Syrian media have launched their own campaign of misinformation to cast doubts on the Houla massacre to clear Bashar al-Assad from any responsibility. Russia and Assad are using the fact that the Syrian Government continues to deny free access to media; in doing so,
the independent media would find it difficult to confirm any news item, leaving the door open to all possibilities. Russia needs any pretext to justify its position after blocking all UNSC resolutions to condemn Assad. Therefore, since March 27th,Russia Today has been continuously casting doubts on who committed the crime and pointing to opposition to have been the murderous side who killed pro-Assad people[1].

The Assad regime and its Russian ally are also taking advantage of the fact that Westerners generally do not know Arabic language, leaving them open to manipulation. Thus they managed to get the story through the media until it reached Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ).[2] on June 6th. The FAZ report echoes almost entirely the narration of Russia Today.[3] However, the FAZreport, which the National Review cited and translated into English, was more detailed.[4] The translation of the National Review reads “Those killed were almost exclusively from families belonging to Houla’s Alawi and Shia minorities… Members of the Shomaliya, an Alawi family, were also killed, as was the family of a Sunni member of the Syrian parliament who is regarded as a collaborator.”The translation of the National Review reads “Those killed were almost exclusively from families belonging to Houla’s Alawi and Shia minorities… Members of the Shomaliya, an Alawi family, were also killed, as was the family of a Sunni member of the Syrian parliament who is regarded as a collaborator.”

Amongst the dead in the Houla massacre there is no family called Shomaliy, asreported in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ). Shomaliya, in fact, is the name of another village outside Houla region. Houla consists of four villages: Taldo, Kafarlaha, Taldahab, al Tiba al Gharbiya; the massacre actually took place in Taldo. The massacre actually took place in Taldo. Going through the list of the victims will reveal to us also that there is no person from al-Mishaleb family, the family of the Syrian MP[5].

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