Syria Feature: Razan Ghazzawi's Speech for Her Human Rights Defenders Award

A tribute to Mazhar Tayara, a citizen journalist who died in the regime assault on Homs, 4 February 2012

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I find myself honored to be the person chosen for such appreciation, and to tell you the truth, I believe I don’t deserve such honor, I see the award as an award for Bassel Shehada, for Mazhar Tayyara, for Ghiath Matar, for Bassel Al-Sayed and for all the citizen journalists who died trying to tell the world what’s happening in Syria, when the traditional media have failed to do so. The traditional media that focuses on people’s misery not on their undefeated will to resist. Syrian citizen journalists and filmmakers tell the revolution in all its colors, through the good times and the bad times. And many have died doing so.

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Syria (and Beyond) Live Coverage: Assad Shoos Away UN Envoy Annan

2112 GMT: Syria. According to the Local Coordinating Committees, at least 40 people were killed by Assad forces today nationwide:

14 martyrs in Homs, 10 martyrs in Daraa (Tayba, Nawa, Inkhel), 7 martyrs in Damascus Suburbs (Douma, Daraya, Thayabiya), 5 martyrs in Aleppo (Izaz and Atareb), 2 martrs in Idlib and 2 martyrs in Kafr Zeita, Hama.

According to the LCCS, only 2 of those killed were members of the Free Syrian Army - 38 were unarmed civilians.

2033 GMT: Syria. Two videos released today give an impression of the scale of violence reported in the Hamidiyah district of Homs today. The first, 2 minutes long (before it repeats without sound), shows shells falling on the district at the center of what was once Syria's 4th largest city. The second video, more than 10 minutes of nearly constant shelling and gunfire, as smoke fills the sky:

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