
Sign up to save your podcasts
Or


Raed Fares, founder of Syria's legendary Radio Fresh FM, was mowed down by unknown gunmen as he left his studios in rebel-held Idlib in November 2018. The death of the man who fought hatred with humour and laughed in the faces of President Assad, ISIS and al-Qaeda, sent shockwaves way beyond his troubled homeland. When ordered by Islamist extremists to stop broadcasting music he had replied with bird song and clucking chickens. On being told to take his female presenters off air, he put their voices through software to make them sound like men. In tribute to its founder, Raed Fares's radio station has refused to die with him. One year on from his killing it continues to broadcast the comedy programmes he loved, as Assad's troops close in and bombs fall around it.
Presenter: Mike Thomson
By BBC Radio 44.7
7575 ratings
Raed Fares, founder of Syria's legendary Radio Fresh FM, was mowed down by unknown gunmen as he left his studios in rebel-held Idlib in November 2018. The death of the man who fought hatred with humour and laughed in the faces of President Assad, ISIS and al-Qaeda, sent shockwaves way beyond his troubled homeland. When ordered by Islamist extremists to stop broadcasting music he had replied with bird song and clucking chickens. On being told to take his female presenters off air, he put their voices through software to make them sound like men. In tribute to its founder, Raed Fares's radio station has refused to die with him. One year on from his killing it continues to broadcast the comedy programmes he loved, as Assad's troops close in and bombs fall around it.
Presenter: Mike Thomson

7,913 Listeners

376 Listeners

863 Listeners

1,067 Listeners

5,576 Listeners

1,808 Listeners

977 Listeners

586 Listeners

1,729 Listeners

1,018 Listeners

2,113 Listeners

1,952 Listeners

488 Listeners

113 Listeners

49 Listeners

40 Listeners

410 Listeners

746 Listeners

227 Listeners

159 Listeners

75 Listeners

3,245 Listeners

779 Listeners

1,010 Listeners