Media on trial in Leeds

 by Mark Campey

Over 200 people from all over the country crammed into a makeshift venue in north Leeds last week to hear six key speakers talk about the way the mainstream media has become corrupt. The meeting had originally been arranged for Leeds City Museum but after an objection by ‘Leeds Friends of Syria’ (a reactionary anti-Assad group) Leeds City council banned the use of all public venues from being used to host this meeting. It was clear that those in power and the mainstream media (MSM) did not want this meeting to go ahead.

The final venue  was only announced the night the meeting took place. An Islamic centre kindly offered to host the meeting organised by Frome Stop War, an independent anti-war group that is not part of the bi-partisan Stop the War coalition.

Professor Piers Robinson of Sheffield University, who opened the discussion, posed the question of what the role of the media should be in society in terms of providing truthful and factual information rather than propaganda. He stated that there was now manipulation, lying and distortion of information with the aim of misdirection along with coercion. He highlighted the Chilcott inquiry which drew attention to the way the MSM had promoted the government’s regime change policy at the time and the recommendations he made are being blatantly ignored. He also referred to ‘Timber Sycamore’ a CIA/Saudi operation to fund ‘rebel’ groups within Syria with the aim of regime change.

Robert Stuart, an independent researcher, spoke about his investigation of the Panorama documentary ‘Saving Syria’s children’ that was first broadcast in 2013.

 He uncovered irregularities in the reporting of a supposed napalm attack by the Syrian air force which led to the discovery that the filmed images of peoples’ injuries were entirely fake. Even the anti-Assad ‘Free Syrian Army’ admitted as much. One of the medical staff shown in the documentary, a Dr Ahsan, who has previously been seen with anti-Gaddafi rebels, is a member of ‘Hand in hand with Syria’ an anti-Assad group. Ahrar al-sham, a terrorist group affiliated to Al-Nusra and ISIS, actually drove the BBC journalists around Syria for the making of this programme. Naturally Robert Stuart asked the question as to whether these journalists were complicit in some of the atrocities they no doubt witnessed whilst with this group?

Professor Tim Hayward of Edinburgh University stated that we should expect the media to abide by the law. He showed a clip from C4 news which showed a girl who had gone to Syria to join the Islamic terror gangs and was encouraging others to join her. Tim was gobsmacked when he saw blatant recruitment propaganda by terrorists being broadcast on mainstream TV. The 2006 Language of Terrorism Act makes it illegal to aid or promote terrorist activity.

 The ‘White Helmets’, a bogus civil defence unit that is just a front for the terrorists, is funded by US-Aid and the British government. Like many other people Prof Hayward is dismayed and very concerned about the immorality of false broadcasting taking place which is why many now eschew MSM in favour of RT and the many independent media groups sprouting up which tell the truth.

Patrick Henningson is a US journalist and broadcaster who puts out 21st Century Wire online. He mentioned how Britain used to be perceived as the gold standard of western democracy but questioned why this meeting had to be held in secret if that was true. What were they afraid of?

 Patrick travelled to Syria and Iraq last year and saw first-hand the destruction wrought by the US military. He highlighted that in US presidential elections the party that garners the most votes is always the one that opposed wars and foreign intervention. This is what Trump promised, but like all others before, once in office Trump carries on the same agenda of world domination.

He talked about the way the massacre of unarmed Palestinians by Israeli troops was called ‘clashes’ by the MSM. He also mentioned the supposed launching of 20 missiles from Syria into the Golan Heights. There is no evidence to support this story.

He mentioned a news report about a Dr Nott, working at an Al-Nusra controlled hospital, who alleged that the Russians had hacked into his social media account to get a fix on his location which allowed them to drop a bunker buster bomb on the hospital. When Patrick visited the liberated hospital the building had clearly been hit by gun-fire.But it was still standing and it had not been hit by a bunker buster bomb. Just fake news like the reports of Syrian Arab Army soldiers raping women during the liberation of east Aleppo. That lie, circulated by Michael Weiss of CNN, was fed to him by the ‘Levant Front’, an affiliate of the Al-Nusra gunmen.

He noted that lots of western journalists were getting into bed with Al-Qaida and Jabat Al-Nusra and calling them ‘rebels’ when they actually are terrorists. He observed the many of the refugees were now returning to Syria in their thousands now that large areas had been liberated by the Syrian army and its allies, something the MSM didn’t want to acknowledge.

Peter Ford, a former British ambassador to Bahrain and Syria, is now a representative of the UN relief and works agency for Palestinian refugees. He is also Director of the British Syrian Society. He started by saying that the MSM was aiding and abetting warmongering using weapons of mass deception. All the events that occurred in Iraq are being copied in Syria. We have a supine media in the business of infotainment even with so-called documentaries. What happened in Raqqa is not being reported.

 The role of MI5’s Andrew Parker is equally troubling. This unelected spymaster is openly telling politicians who they should be making alliances with.

The Skripal affair was all a bit suspicious given that the alleged military grade nerve agent  that poisoned them only managed to cause severe tummy troubles. But it served Parker’s anti-Russian agenda very well.

The intelligence supremo wanted to bomb Syria, under the pretext of the alleged poison gas attack, before allowing the international inspectors (OPCW) in.

 It was obvious to many that it didn’t make sense for Assad to use such a weapon when the Syrian army had all but defeated the terrorists. Furthermore, the sites that were eventually  attacked by NATO had only been inspected and cleared by the OPCW a few months previously.

What is very concerning is that the NATO missile attack has set a precedent and the terrorists will be planning the next false flag for Idlib when the Syrian army pushes into that area. But the Syrians and their allies will not put up with being bombed and humiliated by NATO and its allies for much longer.

Vanessa Beeley is an investigative journalist and photographer who has reported from Egypt. Palestine and Syria, including liberated east Aleppo. John Pilger sent a message to inform the audience of his admiration for her truthful reporting of events in Syria and her expose of the White Helmets.

            Vanessa informed us of the funding stream for this bogus group which has received millions from US-Aid and more recently from the British government. She has reported that the White Helmets are embedded with Al-Nusra and they only help their gunmen and provide no assistance to ordinary civilians.

The true Syrian White Helmets were set up in Syria back in the 1950s and that is the group most Syrians are familiar with – not these usurpers of the name. She was in Damascus when the last NATO missile attack took place shattering the calm that had recently been restored following the clearing of the terrorists holed up in east Ghouta who frequently shelled parts of the capital.

She mentioned how British support for the White Helmets and the so called ‘rebel’ groups is actually against UK law as they are all terrorist groups and there are severe penalties for anyone funding terrorism in Britain.

She suggested a petition be posted on the Frome Stop War website for people to sign to highlight this contradiction and take into account UN General Assembly resolution 2131 (XX) that declares that “no State shall organise, assist, foment, finance, incite or tolerate subversive, terrorist or armed activities directed towards the violent overthrow of the regime of another State, or interfere in civil strife in another State.”

The full content of the speeches at this event can be seen online on YouTube under ‘Media on trial 2018’ and I fully recommend comrades to view them before they too get banned.