Part of Akmaral's speech:
Wintrade asked me to do a talk on what I chose as the most important issues affecting my life as a professional woman. So what follows are issues which impact my career as a journalist and film producer, as a professional woman, and indeed, simply as a woman and a mother at this point in humanity’s history.
To address these issues, I need to focus on 2 questions.
First: Why is protest so often depicted as looting? (Or you choose a question – for structure)
Second: What do COVID-19 and ISIS have in common?
So, to answer the first question, I need to go back to where it all started for me.
While studying the situation in Syria, I often communicated with politicians, diplomats, the military, think-tanks and journalists from different countries, as well as researching information from a variety of sources. These sources included independent media in different languages. I’ve seen time and again how the consciousness not only of an individual or a group of people, the population of entire countries and even on a global scale, can be skilfully manipulated using modern political technologies.
The events in Syria are one striking contemporary example of this. Before my first trip to Syria, I had already been acquainted with the position of the Syrian government and the armed opposition during The Astana Process - the peace talks which take place in the capital of Kazakhstan and are aimed at resolving the Syrian crisis.
There is a side of the Syrian conflict which has been barely mentioned in the global mass media. This side is represented by the Syrians who have not left their country, continue to live there, resist the military terror and economic and information blockade.
They study, work, and give birth to children. Many of them have written to me, telling about what they are going through and asking: Akmaral, speak for us! Through this communication with the Syrians - both those who support President Assad and those who are against him - I have formed an insight into what has happened in Syria, and I’d like to share it with you today.
Many participants of the initial protests, who have now left Syria and live in different countries, told me that the vision of the revolution that they wanted to achieve at the beginning was exactly as they dreamed it to be - they had an opportunity to express their views and opinions.
According to the world mass media reporting at that time, president Assad brutally suppressed peaceful demonstrations using military forces, as a result, his actions led to the civil war. However, the people in Syria told me that at the time of Western politicians stating, “Assad must go!”, no media enlightened the public about the fact that President Assad had actually met with the protesters, addressed them with a speech, negotiated with them and went on to meet their following demands:
Number 1 - Abolition of article 8 of the Constitution, which had positioned the Baath party as the leading political power in the country. This change allowed various parties to participate in the parliamentary elections.
Number 2 - Abolition of the state of emergency law, which had prevailed in the country for decades.
Number 3 - Banning the exceptional courts.
Number 4 - Freeing thousands of political prisoners from prisons, according to the list of names presented by the protesters. The majority of them were radicals, who later joined the terrorist groups.
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