DAMASCUS: Syrian state television officially relaunched on Monday with a trial broadcast almost five months after the ouster of longtime ruler Bashar Assad and following delays blamed on sanctions and dilapidated equipment.
After Syria’s new authorities took power in December, state media and other television channels, radio stations and outlets affiliated with Assad’s government suspended broadcasting and publishing.
At 5:00 p.m. (1400 GMT) on Monday, a presenter appeared on television screens, welcoming viewers and announcing the start of a test broadcast of Syria’s Alekhbariah television channel from Damascus via two satellite providers.
The channel showcased its new branding and broadcast images of Damascus and Ummayad Square, where the Public Authority for Radio and Television headquarters are located, as well as images of correspondents across the country.
“Today, the first official television channel has launched,” said new authority chief Alaa Bersilo, vowing it would be “a mediator between the state and society.”
He said broadcasting was delayed several times “due to television infrastructure” and “sanctions on the former regime which impacted satellite broadcast efforts.”
The channel’s director Jamil Srur said: “We were keen on Alekhbariah being fit for the new Syria, and this is what delayed its launch.”
In a post on X, Information Minister Hamza Al-Mustafa called the launch “a very emotional moment,” expressing hope that the channel would be help rebuild the national media and be a model for “rebuilding trust” with Syrians.
After forces led by Islamist group Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS) took Damascus on December 8 and announced Assad’s overthrow, state news agency SANA stopped operating for more than a day before resuming with new staff.
But state television failed to keep up with fast-evolving events, at first broadcasting archive footage and later ceasing transmissions.
The new authorities have cracked down on outlets that were close to the ousted government, particularly Al-Watan daily and Sham FM radio.
For decades, Syria’s ruling Baath party and the Assad family dynasty heavily curtailed all aspects of daily life, including freedom of the press and expression, while the media became a tool of those in power and the entry of foreign media was heavily restricted.
Since Assad’s fall, outlets in exile or in formerly opposition areas have come to prominence, and foreign journalists have flooded in.
Syria ranks 177 out of 180 countries and territories on the 2025 World Press Freedom Index published by the Paris-based Reporters Without Borders (RSF).
While Assad’s ouster ended “five decades of brutal and violent repression of the press... journalists’ newfound freedom remains fragile due to ongoing political instability and mounting economic pressures,” according to RSF.
Syria state TV relaunches, months after Assad’s ouster
https://arab.news/nr2s4
Syria state TV relaunches, months after Assad’s ouster
- Following Assad’s fall, television channels, radio stations and outlets suspended broadcasting and publishing
- ‘We hope to rebuild national media and trust with Syrians,’ Information Minister Hamza Al-Mustafa said
China’s national security agency in Hong Kong summons international media representatives
HONG KONG: China’s national security agency in Hong Kong summoned international media representatives for a “regulatory talk” on Saturday, saying some had spread false information and smeared the government in recent reports on a deadly fire and upcoming legislative elections.
Senior journalists from several major outlets operating in the city, including AFP, were summoned to the meeting by the Office for Safeguarding National Security (OSNS), which was opened in 2020 following Beijing’s imposition of a wide-ranging national security law on the city.
Through the OSNS, Beijing’s security agents operate openly in Hong Kong, with powers to investigate and prosecute national security crimes.
“Recently, some foreign media reports on Hong Kong have disregarded facts, spread false information, distorted and smeared the government’s disaster relief and aftermath work, attacked and interfered with the Legislative Council election, (and) provoked social division and confrontation,” an OSNS statement posted online shortly after the meeting said.
At the meeting, an official who did not give his name read out a similar statement to media representatives.
He did not give specific examples of coverage that the OSNS had taken issue with, and did not take questions.
The online OSNS statement urged journalists to “not cross the legal red line.”
“The Office will not tolerate the actions of all anti-China and trouble-making elements in Hong Kong, and ‘don’t say we didn’t warn you’,” it read.
For the past week and a half, news coverage in Hong Kong has been dominated by a deadly blaze on a residential estate which killed at least 159 people.
Authorities have warned against crimes that “exploit the tragedy” and have reportedly arrested at least three people for sedition in the fire’s aftermath.
Dissent in Hong Kong has been all but quashed since Beijing brought in the national security law, after huge and sometimes violent protests in 2019.
Hong Kong’s electoral system was revamped in 2021 to ensure that only “patriots” could hold office, and the upcoming poll on Sunday will select a second batch of lawmakers under those rules.
