(Zaman Al Wasl)- Zaman al-Wasl's deputy editor in-chief revealed to German Deutsche Welle (DW) channel that 88% of the arrest warrants issued by the al-Assad intelligence forces against foreign journalists were issued with the start of the Syrian revolution.
The regime mandated the Military Intelligence Branch the task of issuing these warrants which given the branch’s track record represent execution orders.
Speaking during the ‘Evening Program’ on German television on Thursday, he asserted that Zaman al-Wasl has fought over the past few years to pave the way for justice by revealing the regime oppression in Syria.
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The massive intelligence file, which contains over 1.7 million arrest warrants, generated much debate recently in Germany and Europe. However, the file is but one of several files which Zaman al-Wasl has published. Zaman al-Wasl published a report drawing on that file on 29 September 2015 on the tenth anniversary of the newspaper’s founding.
Abdul Haq pointed out that the newspaper is open to any media institutions that wish to collaborate and obtain information about the al-Assad intelligence archive as this will help to reveal the truth about the regime to the world.
In the television interview with German DW, Abdul Haq clarified that Zaman al-Wasl had published ten exclusive reports drawing on the intelligence archive placing this material in the hands of audiences, other media outlets and organizations. The newspaper published these reports in Arabic and English raising the question of why the belated interest in these files by western media outlets.
During the interview, Abdul Haq mentioned some of the statistics that Zaman al-Wasl had published previously including the number of warrants issued against non-Syrian citizens which are around 210,000 warrants. German nationals occupy eighth place, among non-Arab and non-Syrians nationals, in terms of intelligence warrants issued against German citizens in Syria.
He explained that 697 arrest warrants were issued for German citizens, and 153 warrants for other people including American, British and French nationals. There is even an arrest warrant for someone holding Vatican citizenship where the Vatican has indisputable religious symbolism.
Of these warrants 197, 88%, were issued against journalists after the start of the Syrian revolution. The warrants were issued by the Military Intelligence Branch which has the highest level of violations were 55,000 violations were documented by the dissident military photographer Ceaser.
Abdul Haq explained that given the Branch’s track record, these warrants were death warrants for these journalists and serve as a warning to any journalist who might try to enter Syria to communicate what is happening.
Of the 1.7 million warrants obtained by Zaman al-Wasl, 578,000 are from the Military Intelligence Branch alone. The number of arrest warrants issued by intelligence apparatus in Syria is 524,000 of this 276,000 were issued by the Military Intelligence (i.e. 53% of the warrants issued), so the Military Intelligence is responsible for half of the regime’s the oppressive actions.
The intelligence apparatus in Syria includes the Air Force Intelligence branches, Political Intelligence branches, the General Intelligence, the Ministries of Interior, Defense and Justice, among other institutions used to terrorize Syrians.
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