Nusra’s 2016 attack on Radio Fresh

Julia Taleb

This article is included in the Spring 2019 issue of Syria Notes.

On 10 January 2016, the Nusra Front, an al-Qaeda-affiliated terrorist group in Syria, stormed the headquarters of Radio Fresh in Kafranbel and arrested its director Raed al-Fares and journalist Hadi Abdullah. The flag of the Syrian revolution was thrown on the floor and al-Nusra members stepped on it and forced the station’s members to do the same. They destroyed and confiscated equipment and books, burned the flag and—according to Ghalia al-Rahal, director of Mazaya, a women’s centre in Kafranbel—shouted, ‘We do not want any media in Kafranbel.’ They closed the station and placed a sign at the main door saying, ‘Confiscated by Jabhat al-Nusra, do not approach.’

Read the original article online at Waging Nonviolence.

Photo: ‘Confiscated by Jabhat al-Nusra,’ painted on the URB office in January 2016.