Reading done on November 27 2017
"Le Djihad Contre Les Journalistes"
- by Reporters Sans Frontières - January 4 2016
- ISSN: 0039-6338 (Print) 1468-2699 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/tsur20
- Title translation: The Jihad Against the Journalists
- Supervised by a Aude Rossigneux. With the collaboration of Lysiane Baudu, Alexandre Levy, America Suncic, Serge Faubert, Youssef Aït Akdim.
- Publication in French
- photo source: Reporters Sans Frontières 2016, 9
““Journalists who write against the Islamic state are considered enemy soldiers and, as such, targets to be shot down” - the researcher Romain Caillet, specialist in jihadism, former teacher at the French Institute of the Near East” (Reporters Sans Frontières 2016, 6).
“…the EI emirs want to have control over information and control to the word what the media says about them” (Reporters Sans Frontières 2016, 6).
In this publication, Reporters Sans Frontières (2016) states that Ultraviolence that includes filmed beheading has become the “signature” of the Islamic state, is not Daech's (7).
“"For Islamic scholars, however, it is difficult to link Daech’s media policy to any theological doctrine, however extreme it may be. Some see it as an implementation of the precepts of the Jihadist pamphlet Managing Barbarity, attributed to a certain Abu Bakr Naji. Dated 2007, this text is considered to be the Mein Kampf of the Islamists.” - The journalist Nicolas Hénin” (Reporters Sans Frontières 2016, 7).
Reporters Sans Frontières (2016) claims that on October 2014, the Islamic state ordered local journalists in Deir ez-Zor to pledge allegiance to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the Caliphate leader, and published 11 commandments for journalists in Deir ez-Zor, which consists of several articles referring to the Sharia law to establish the control of information by “authorities" (8). Moreover, seven articles out of the eleven refer to the "press services of the Islamic State,” while the Eleventh Commandment establishes a summary of the accreditation procedure (Reporters Sans Frontières 2016, 8). Below is a screenshot of the 11 Commandments for journalists in Deir ez-Zor.
According to Michael Weiss et Hassan El-Hassan, the Islamic State fighters keep repeating the mantra “Don’t listen to what people say about us, listen to what we have to say to you” (Reporters Sans Frontières 2016, 16). This mantra summarizes the Islamic State’s media strategy which exercises a totalitarian behaviour with a full control over its image while eliminating any opposition with great brutality (Reporters Sans Frontières 2016, 16). According to this publication, the IS’s media organization chart outlines a powerful media empire, with the top of the pyramid being the highest level of the organization. Moreover, it states that at the beginning of December 2015, The Guardian published an article called “The Isis papers : a masterplan for consolidating power” that revealed an internal document of the organization that meticulously describes the administrative functioning of the Caliphate (Reporters Sans Frontières 2016, 16). According to The Guardian article, Chapter 10 of this internal document discusses the IS media organization, which is considered crucial in order for the IS to achieve its objectives (Reporters Sans Frontières 2016, 16). Moreover, to discuss how the division of the media, there is the “Base Foundation” with several media branches that reports directly to the “Caliph’s office” (Diwan al-Khalifa) and acts in concert with the organization’s highest military and security officials (Reporters Sans Frontières 2016, 16). To add, this body is responsible for supervising the work of the regional offices (Reporters Sans Frontières 2016, 16).
The British think tank Quilliam, which specializes in counter-terrorism, published a detailed report outlining how the Islamic State’s propaganda works (Reporters Sans Frontières 2016, 16). According to this report, the Base Foundation, manages seven media branches, each with its own speciality (video, text, photo, radio, translations, etc.): the Al-Furqan, Al-Itisam, Al-Himma, Ajnad foundations, Al-Bayan Radio, Al-Hayat Media Centre and the A'maq agency. This entity heads the thirty-eight “information offices” around the world - mainly in Iraq and Syria but also in Afghanistan, West Africa, the Caucasus, Algeria, Egypt, Yemen, Libya, Tunisia, Saudi Arabia (Reporters Sans Frontières 2016, 16-17).
In the territories under its control, the Islamic State’s media organization has five television channels and Al-Bayan radio in Mosul, Iraq, two other channels in Raqqa and the magazine Dabiq (discontinued in 2016), which was published in several languages and aimed at a Western audience (Reporters Sans Frontières 2016, 17).
Reporters Sans Frontières (2016) claims that most of the Islamic State’s communication warfare goes through the web; it has hundreds of websites and tens of thousands of accounts on social networks, where its communication campaigns quickly become viral (17).
The Islamic State’s jihadis in the media organization are essential to the functioning of the Caliphate; some of them have experience as they are ex-journalists, amateur videographers, forum and website moderators, etc., and others learn after joining the organization (Reporters Sans Frontières 2016, 17). Nevertheless, they all go through a military training of a few months to learn how to handle weapons and explosives before joining the media front (Reporters Sans Frontières 2016, 17). The media organization operators have the same status as combatants but benefit from financial and material advantages, for example some of them could be “paid up to seven times more than the basic infantryman, are entitled to a company car, a smartphone and state-of-the-art computer equipment. They are exempt from taxes; sometimes their families are even housed in one of the “villas” that the Caliphate makes available to its most deserving executives” (Reporters Sans Frontières 2016, 17-18).
Abu Hajer, a young Moroccan and a former jihadist recruit who defected in 2015, and about ten deserters interviewed around the world by the Washington Post, testified that the IS has a “real media army” at work between Raqqa and Mosul (Reporters Sans Frontières 2016, 18). These men describe the media organization as a very hierarchical system, but also extremely compartmentalized (Reporters Sans Frontières 2016, 18). They claim that “photographers and cameramen are the “workers” of an elite, they are the ones who provide the raw material for propaganda. They received their instructions in the morning, on a piece of paper bearing the Daech flag and the emir’s seal, which simply indicated the location of the shooting but never the subject. It can be beheading, mass killing such as a Ramadan break-up meal, engagement or sunset in the desert. They then give their images to the directors and “producers” of the media unit. The comments, the final format, or the timing of the broadcast are the responsibility of Daech’s highest authorities - a sign of the importance given to propaganda by the group. As the backbone of Daech’s communication, the members of the “media brigades” live in a world of privilege, but also of coercion and surveillance. Any personal initiative is banned and objection is not an option “You know that you can take the place of the torture victims you are filming at any time,” explains Abu Hajer”” (Reporters Sans Frontières 2016, 18).
The researcher Charlie Winter of the British think tank Quilliam claims that “the IS’s propaganda strikes first by its volume, then by its variety and finally by its quality" (Reporters Sans Frontières 2016, 18). In his report, Documenting The Virtual “Califate”,Winter claims that images of “gross violence” (decapitations and other mass murders) constitute “only” 2.13% of these images. The “warrior” videos, in which the organization scatters the strength and determination of its fighters with a lot of military equipment and gleaming 4x4s, represent 37.12% of the images analyzed. But more than half of Daech’s propaganda (52.57%) remains devoted to the daily life of the “caliphate”, presented as a utopia within reach. The operation consists in showing the territories administered by Daech as a strong state, certainly, but also merciful and in which life is good. The quality of the food is praised, the richness of the souks and the variety of its preserved nature… Jihadists appear there building hospitals and schools, taking care of roads and beautifying cities, and even regulating fishing in the Euphrates to preserve its biological richness. In addition, there are scenes of marriages and comradeship between fighters of different nationalities.“ ” (Reporters Sans Frontières 2016, 19). Moreover, Reporters Sans Frontières refers to the think tank Quilliam by stating that “these images, which are rarely broadcast by the Western press, are in fact intended for a completely different audience. The aim here is to convince Sunnis in the region, but also throughout the world, that the "caliphate” represents a real social alternative, a viable state and a welcoming land not only for the warriors of Allah but also for engineers, doctors, agronomists and women” (Reporters Sans Frontières 2016, 19).
It is noteworthy to mention that Reporters Sans Frontières (2016) states that special care is given to the staging, with technical means worthy of a major television production (19). “During editing, special effects are sometimes used. Abu Abdullah, another “repentant” cameraman interviewed by the Washington Post, says that, in the field, it is often the “guys” of the media team who give the top of an execution and not the executioner" (Reporters Sans Frontières 2016, 19).