My article on #ArteArabRevolutions blog:

Many Syrians believe that Syrian citizen journalism do provide a more comprehensive and accurate coverage of the Syrian revolution than mainstream media’s, be it Arab or international.

Deir Ezzor Press Network  is one of the famous pages on Facebook that publishes almost professional reports on the revolutionary, yet marginalized, city of Deir Ezzor. We have been lucky to have the admin of the page, Tarek*, speak to us despite the difficult situation Deir Ezzor is going through.

“Wait a minute please, the potatoes are almost done now.” Tarek told me through Skype voice call. Deir Ezzor has been besieged for the past five months and there isn’t much food left as a consequence except what the farmers of Der Ezzor grow; potatoes and grain.

Tarek is still a university student, he left school to commit himself to the revolution. He created this page from his dorm room when the revolution began in Daraa:

“There weren’t demonstrations in Syria at the time but in Daraa, but we were in coordination with Daraa activists and we helped them upload their videos since internet was cut in their city.”

[…]

I asked Tarek how he would describe FSA’s role in the city, especially that some have been critical of FSA’s operations against thugs and pro-regime intelligence. His comment was:

“As a media activist, I don’t work with FSA revolutionaries, but many of my friends are volunteering to join them. Who are the FSA in Deir Ezzor but my neighbors and people you’ve always seen in the streets of your city. These people have experienced much violence in the past 19 months that they believe they should protect their homes and loved ones. Mistakes? Well how can you expect otherwise? They’re not trained nor given high tech weapons, they’re using primitive and simple weapons to defend our lives, our lives, which many media channels have turned them to numbers. My life is a number to you, I might be dead tomorrow, but my friends have joined FSA to save my life and others’. Over 2630 have been killed in Deir Ezzor since the start of the revolution. ”

To read the rest of the article please click here.