kong
02-23-2012, 07:10 PM
Wounded journalists in Syria plead for help in YouTube videos
A pair of French journalists wounded in the attack in Homs, Syria that killed Sunday Times reporter Marie Colvin and French photographer Rémi Ochlik posted a pair of YouTube videos Thursday, asking their government for help. Edith Bouvier, a reporter for the Le Figaro newspaper, and Paul Conroy, a freelance photographer, asked that Bouvier be allowed to leave the city of Homs, where the attack occurred. Other activists who spoke in the video appealed to the French government and Red Cross to evacuate them. Conroy said they had been injured in the "rocket attack" that killed Colvin and Ochlik, and were being treated by a local medical team. He added that they were not being held captive, but that Bouvier, in particular, was in need of more extensive medical attention. Jean-Pierre Perrin, a journalist for the Paris-based Liberation newspaper who had been with the group in Homs last week, told London's Telegraph that Syrian forces had threatened to kill journalists there. "A few days ago we were advised to leave the city urgently and we were told: 'If they find you they will kill you,'" Perrin said. "I then left the city with the journalist from the Sunday Times but then she wanted to go back when she saw that the major offensive had not yet taken place." Perrin said he was told the Syrian Army "issued orders to 'kill any journalist that set foot on Syrian soil.'" In an appearance on CNN just hours before her death, Colvin told Anderson Cooper that threats against civilians by the Syrian government were becoming serious.
"It's a complete and utter lie they're only going after terrorists," Colvin said. "The Syrian Army is simply shelling a city of cold, starving civilians."
A pair of French journalists wounded in the attack in Homs, Syria that killed Sunday Times reporter Marie Colvin and French photographer Rémi Ochlik posted a pair of YouTube videos Thursday, asking their government for help. Edith Bouvier, a reporter for the Le Figaro newspaper, and Paul Conroy, a freelance photographer, asked that Bouvier be allowed to leave the city of Homs, where the attack occurred. Other activists who spoke in the video appealed to the French government and Red Cross to evacuate them. Conroy said they had been injured in the "rocket attack" that killed Colvin and Ochlik, and were being treated by a local medical team. He added that they were not being held captive, but that Bouvier, in particular, was in need of more extensive medical attention. Jean-Pierre Perrin, a journalist for the Paris-based Liberation newspaper who had been with the group in Homs last week, told London's Telegraph that Syrian forces had threatened to kill journalists there. "A few days ago we were advised to leave the city urgently and we were told: 'If they find you they will kill you,'" Perrin said. "I then left the city with the journalist from the Sunday Times but then she wanted to go back when she saw that the major offensive had not yet taken place." Perrin said he was told the Syrian Army "issued orders to 'kill any journalist that set foot on Syrian soil.'" In an appearance on CNN just hours before her death, Colvin told Anderson Cooper that threats against civilians by the Syrian government were becoming serious.
"It's a complete and utter lie they're only going after terrorists," Colvin said. "The Syrian Army is simply shelling a city of cold, starving civilians."