Rami Abdul Rahman, AKA Syrian Observatory for Human Rights

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Looks like we don't have a topic on this guy. So, in this thread, please post any exposes you can find, and any nonsense this guy puts out. Lord knows, there's a lot of it.

To start, here's Niall's piece on SOTT, with a video of the RT expose:

https://www.sott.net/article/303136-Information-war-goes-into-overdrive-as-West-reacts-to-Russian-intervention-in-Syria

And here's Tony Cartalucci's:

http://landdestroyer.blogspot.com/2013/04/exposed-syrian-human-rights-front-is-eu.html
NYT admits fraudulent Syrian human rights group is UK-based "one-man band" funded by EU and one other "European country."

April 12, 2013 (LD) - In reality, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights has long ago been exposed as an absurd propaganda front operated by Rami Abdul Rahman out of his house in England's countryside. According to a December 2011 Reuters article titled, "Coventry - an unlikely home to prominent Syria activist," Abdul Rahman admits he is a member of the so-called "Syrian opposition" and seeks the ouster of Syrian President Bashar Al Assad:

After three short spells in prison in Syria for pro-democracy activism, Abdulrahman came to Britain in 2000 fearing a longer, fourth jail term.

"I came to Britain the day Hafez al-Assad died, and I'll return when Bashar al-Assad goes," Abdulrahman said, referring to Bashar's father and predecessor Hafez, also an autocrat.
One could not fathom a more unreliable, compromised, biased source of information, yet for the past two years, his "Observatory" has served as the sole source of information for the endless torrent of propaganda emanating from the Western media. Perhaps worst of all, is that the United Nations uses this compromised, absurdly overt source of propaganda as the basis for its various reports - at least, that is what the New York Times now claims in their recent article, "A Very Busy Man Behind the Syrian Civil War’s Casualty Count."

The NYT piece admits:
Military analysts in Washington follow its body counts of Syrian and rebel soldiers to gauge the course of the war. The United Nations and human rights organizations scour its descriptions of civilian killings for evidence in possible war crimes trials. Major news organizations, including this one, cite its casualty figures.

Yet, despite its central role in the savage civil war, the grandly named Syrian Observatory for Human Rights is virtually a one-man band. Its founder, Rami Abdul Rahman, 42, who fled Syria 13 years ago, operates out of a semidetached red-brick house on an ordinary residential street in this drab industrial city [Coventry, England].

The New York Times also for the first time reveals that Abdul Rahman's operation is indeed funded by the European Union and a "European country" he refuses to identify:

Money from two dress shops covers his minimal needs for reporting on the conflict, along with small subsidies from the European Union and one European country that he declines to identify.

And while Abdul Rahman refuses to identify that "European country," it is beyond doubt that it is the United Kingdom itself - as Abdul Rahman has direct access to the Foreign Secretary William Hague, who he has been documented meeting in person on multiple occasions at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in London. The NYT in fact reveals that it was the British government that first relocated Abdul Rahman to Coventry, England after he fled Syria over a decade ago because of his anti-government activities:
When two associates were arrested in 2000, he fled the country, paying a human trafficker to smuggle him into England. The government resettled him in Coventry, where he decided he liked the slow pace.

Abdul Rahman is not a "human rights activist." He is a paid propagandist. He is no different than the troupe of unsavory, willful liars and traitors provided refuge in Washington and London during the Iraq war and the West's more recent debauchery in Libya, for the sole purpose of supplying Western governments with a constant din of propaganda and intentionally falsified intelligence reports designed specifically to justify the West's hegemonic designs.

Abdul Rahman's contemporaries include the notorious Iraqi defector Rafid al-Janabi, codename "Curveball," who now gloats publicly that he invented accusations of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, the West's casus belli for a 10 year war that ultimately cost over a million lives, including thousands of Western troops, and has left Iraq still to this day in shambles. There's also the lesser known Dr. Sliman Bouchuiguir of Libya, who formed the foundation of the pro-West human rights racket in Benghazi and now openly brags in retrospect that tales of Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi's atrocities against the Libyan people were likewise invented to give NATO its sought-after impetus to intervene militarily.

Unlike in Iraq and Libya, the West has failed categorically to sell military intervention in Syria, and even its covert war has begun to unravel as the public becomes increasingly aware that the so-called "pro-democracy rebels" the West has been arming for years are in fact sectarian extremists fighting under the banner of Al Qaeda. The charade that is the "Syrian Observatory for Human Rights" is also unraveling. It is unlikely that the New York Times' limited hangout will convince readers that Rami Abdul Rahman is anything other than another "Curveball" helping the corporate-financier elite of Wall Street and London sell another unnecessary war to the public.
 
Great idea to put a thread up for easy reference. Funny, as I was looking up Niall's article about this guy today, when I saw the latest of his nonsense of 3000 Russian conscript arriving in Syria. At least I thought it to be nonsense.
_https://www.almasdarnews.com/article/3000-russian-conscripts-arrive-syria-fight-alongside-syrian-army-monitor-group/
3000 Russian conscripts arrive at Syria to fight alongside Syrian Army, monitor group

At least 3000 Russian servicemen arrived at the northern Syrian city of Aleppo to help the Syrian Army fight jihadi groups in and around the embattled city, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) claimed.

The UK-based monitoring group added that the Russian fighters have arrived over the past four weeks and transported to the government-held As-Safira city in the northeast of Aleppo.

Al Masdar News hasn't been able to verify the authenticity of this claim.

Battles are expected to re-erupt after the 7-day nationwide ceasefire was declared officially over by the Syrian Army's command due to repeated violations by rebel groups.

No evidence needed, but it gives the idea that Russia is the aggressor and not seeking a diplomatic solution.
 
Here is some more info about him

_http://www.shoah.org.uk/2015/07/02/exposed-syrian-human-rights-front-is-mi6-funded-fraud/

NYT admits fraudulent Syrian human rights group is UK-based “one-man band” funded by EU and one other “European country.”April 12, 2013 (LD) – In reality, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights has long ago been exposed as an absurd propaganda front operated by Rami Abdul Rahman out of his house in England’s countryside. According to a December 2011 Reuters article titled, “Coventry – an unlikely home to prominent Syria activist,” Abdul Rahman admits he is a member of the so-called “Syrian opposition” and seeks the ouster of Syrian President Bashar Al Assad

One could not fathom a more unreliable, compromised, biased source of information, yet for the past two years, his “Observatory” has served as the sole source of information for the endless torrent of propaganda emanating from the Western media. Perhaps worst of all, is that the United Nations uses this compromised, absurdly overt source of propaganda as the basis for its various reports – at least, that is what the New York Times now claims in their recent article, “A Very Busy Man Behind the Syrian Civil War’s Casualty Count.

The New York Times also for the first time reveals that Abdul Rahman’s operation is indeed funded by the European Union and a “European country” he refuses to identify:

And while Abdul Rahman refuses to identify that “European country,” it is beyond doubt that it is the United Kingdom itself – as Abdul Rahman has direct access to the Foreign Secretary William Hague, who he has been documented meeting in person on multiple occasions at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in London. The NYT in fact reveals that it was the British government that first relocated Abdul Rahman to Coventry, England after he fled Syria over a decade ago because of his anti-government activities

Abdul Rahman is not a “human rights activist.” He is a paid propagandist. He is no different than the troupe of unsavory, willful liars and traitors provided refuge in Washington and London during the Iraq war and the West’s more recent debauchery in Libya, for the sole purpose of supplying Western governments with a constant din of propaganda and intentionally falsified intelligence reports designed specifically to justify the West’s hegemonic designs.
Abdul Rahman’s contemporaries include the notorious Iraqi defector Rafid al-Janabi, codename “Curveball,” who now gloats publicly that he invented accusations of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, the West’s casus belli for a 10 year war that ultimately cost over a million lives, including thousands of Western troops, and has left Iraq still to this day in shambles. There’s also the lesser known Dr. Sliman Bouchuiguir of Libya, who formed the foundation of the pro-West human rights racket in Benghazi and now openly brags in retrospect that tales of Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi’s atrocities against the Libyan people were likewise invented to give NATO its sought-after impetus to intervene militarily.
Unlike in Iraq and Libya, the West has failed categorically to sell military intervention in Syria, and even its covert war has begun to unravel as the public becomes increasingly aware that the so-called “pro-democracy rebels” the West has been arming for years are in fact sectarian extremists fighting under the banner of Al Qaeda. The charade that is the “Syrian Observatory for Human Rights” is also unraveling. It is unlikely that the New York Times’ limited hangout will convince readers that Rami Abdul Rahman is anything other than another “Curveball” helping the corporate-financier elite of Wall Street and London sell another unnecessary war to the public.
 
We ought to find out what media outlets use this bozo as a source and nail them here in the thread and on sott.
 
Laura said:
We ought to find out what media outlets use this bozo as a source and nail them here in the thread and on sott.

In Denmark, all the main stream papers quote SOHR all the time in the attempt to paint a picture that demonises Russia and glorifies the US led coalition. :(
 
Laura said:
We ought to find out what media outlets use this bozo as a source and nail them here in the thread and on sott.

Pretty much every mainstream media outlet references him. They've been doing it for a few years now.
 
Joe said:
Laura said:
We ought to find out what media outlets use this bozo as a source and nail them here in the thread and on sott.

Pretty much every mainstream media outlet references him. They've been doing it for a few years now.

Yeah. Luckily, Sputnik made a good article about him last year. We have it on Croatian sott: https://hr.sott.net/article/3590-Sirijska-opservatorija-za-dezinformacije
 
The "We Are Anonymous" website published a decent article on SOHR back in October of 2015. Interesting, Anonymous states that there are actually two SOHR websites, rivals of one another.

The SOHR website Syriahr.net and Syriahr.com/en (English version) is run by Rami Abdul rahman ( Osama Ali Suleiman )

and the rival site The website Syriahr.org (Syrian Network for Human Rights) is run by Mousab Azzawi.


The Truth Behind The Oft-Quoted Syrian Observatory For Human Rights
http://anonhq.com/truth-behind-oft-quoted-syrian-observatory-human-rights/

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights is quoted as though it were the most authoritative source of information to be found in Syria. Such “luminaries” as the Huffington Post, VICE, Reuters, CNN , Fox and nearly all of the mainstream media have been caught citing this website verbatim, without so much as questioning the reliability of this singular source.

Only RT, being a Russian outlet and thus being the butt of a lot of the site’s accusations, seemed at least concerned enough about the authenticity of this source to conduct an investigation into discovering how this authority on all things Syrian had came to existence, and its process for deriving its very-“authentic” information.

Abdel Rahman is the “director” of the SOHR, though it is quite uncertain if he actually has anyone to “direct” as nobody else is known to work for/with him. He works from his two-bedroom Coventry home in the UK; this is why you keep seeing the Mainstream media call him a “London-based monitoring group“. It’s quite funny, really, calling this one man a “London-based monitoring group” in the same vein as The Red Cross.

Check out its wiki page, it says the same thing. It also reveals that there are really two SOHR websites, both of which seem to hate each other, and both claim that the other had stolen the idea/entire website from the other:

The website Syriahr.org claimed that Rami Abdulrahman was in fact called Osama Ali Suleiman and he merely used the name Rami Abdulrahman, a pen-name that the website claimed to have been initially used by all “SOHR members”.[6] Syriahr.org claimed that Abdulrahman was able to wrest control of the SOHR website Syriahr.net in August 2011 by changing all the passwords and that he proceeded to make himself the chairman of the SOHR, upon which an organisation claiming to be the ‘real’ SOHR created the rival website Syriahr.org.[6] This new website Syriahr.org then proceeded to attack Abdulrahman, claiming he only had a “very modest level of education”, thus not able to “communicate professionally in English”, and condemning his “lack of professionalism” and even alleging that he was a member of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party.[6][7][8]

Abdulrahman, meanwhile, says the new site Syriahr.org is run by Mousab Azzawi, who used to translate for the SOHR[2] but was fired after falsely claiming to be an official spokesman for the organisation and calling for foreign intervention in Syria.[7] The SOHR which was run by Mousab Azzawi had stated that they consider reporting on the deaths of government soldiers to be “not in their interest”.

Since the early conflict, it appears that Azzawi’s Syriahr.org is inactive and has adopted the name Syrian Network for Human Rights with the website Syrianhr.org, whereas Abdulrahman’s group continues to use the sites Syriahr.net (Arabic version) and Syriahr.com/en (English version).

In the comment section:

linda says:
July 25, 2016 at 12:40 pm

This is a late reaction to this post. I have worked with the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights since 2012. It’s true that in the UK there is only one person who is the founder of the organisation. however, there are also project coordinators in satellite offices in the Netherlands, Lebanon and Turkey.
 
Well the, we ALL need to be spreading the info about this guy. And every article on sott needs to have a comment and link to the info about it. FB and twitter seem like good avenues of spreading the word. Every link put out there about it, even if you repeat it every couple of days, will add up. Yeah, I know, they'll just set somebody else up, but that takes time and money so we ought to be spoiling their soup.
 
We have translated Cartalucci's piece on Finnish SOTT:

https://fi.sott.net/article/351-Syrian-Observatory-for-Human-Rights-on-EU-n-rahoittama-yhden-miehen-propagandaorkesteri
 
Thor said:
Laura said:
We ought to find out what media outlets use this bozo as a source and nail them here in the thread and on sott.

In Denmark, all the main stream papers quote SOHR all the time in the attempt to paint a picture that demonises Russia and glorifies the US led coalition. :(

If that is so, then we should also translate the two articles by Niall and Tony Cartalucci into Danish and get it up on Danish Sott. Let me know if you have time to translate.
 
There is also this article that was carried on Sott and from Associated Press.

https://www.sott.net/article/267992-Based-in-England-one-man-feeds-Western-media-on-Syrian-clashes
Based in England, one man feeds Western media on Syrian clashes

He's practically a one man band, but Rami Abdurrahman's influence extends far beyond his modest home in this small English city.

The bald, bespectacled 42-year-old operates the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights from his house in the cathedral city of Coventry - and a review of recent media coverage suggests its running tally of killings and clashes is the most frequently cited individual source of information on Syria's civil war for the world's leading news organizations.

"He's just everywhere," said Joshua Landis, the director of the Center for Middle East Studies at the University of Oklahoma. "He's the go-to guy for figures. ... I can't think of anybody who comes close."[Have these universities not learned anything about checking sources? Sheesh]

Abdurrahman, who says he makes his living from a local clothing shop, says the Observatory relies on four unnamed activists in Syria and a wider network of monitors across the country to document and verify clashes and killings. But as the Observatory has increasingly found itself at the center of Western reporting on Syria's civil, some say his figures - and his sources - need more scrutiny.

Opponents say Abdurrahman is in cahoots with the opposition forces bankrolled by Gulf Arab states, skewing casualty figures to keep the spotlight off rebel atrocities. Others contend that Abdurrahman is in league with the Syrian regime. They accuse him of overplaying incidents of sectarian violence to blacken the reputation of those trying to topple President Bashar Assad.

Abdurrahman sees the competing allegations as evidence that's he's being fair; "You know you're doing a good job when all the sides start to attack you," he said in a recent interview.[Really?]

Still, one prominent critic says it boggles the mind that a man living in Coventry is somehow able to count and categorize the dead in Syria hour by hour, every day of the week.

"Something is going on which is quite fishy," said As'ad AbuKhalil, a professor of Middle Eastern politics at California State University Stanislaus.

Busy Man

Abdurrahman was working on four hours' sleep when he met The Associated Press at Coventry's drab-looking train station earlier this month.

He'd planned to get to bed by 10 p.m. the previous night, but rebel infighting in the Syrian border town of Azaz meant he stayed up until 2 a.m. monitoring developments. He got up again at 6 a.m. to check for overnight updates. [Updates from MI5, CIA, ISIS?]

"It's not a nine-to-five job," Rami said as he drove across the city, a white dove-shaped air freshener dangling from his rear-view mirror.

By his own account, Abdurrahman operates as a kind of human switchboard, fielding calls round-the-clock from Syrian activists, international journalists, and human rights workers. Particularly intense news days had seen up to 500 calls, he said.

Suspicions have long dogged Abdurrahman. Is the self-exiled Syrian really who he says he is? Who's behind his organization? And is he accurate enough to justify the world's reliance on his reporting?

Switching from English to Arabic and often speaking through a translator, Abdurrahman - whose real name is Ossama Suleiman - defended his decision to use a pseudonym as part of the Arab tradition of the nom de guerre.

He said he received money from a European human rights group, but declined to name it. Only after prodding did he say he had been receiving less than 100,000 euros ($137,000) a year since 2012 in support of his work.[Nice comfortable wage for peddling lies]

"We're in a state of war," he said. "It's difficult to be completely transparent."

Syrian Network

Abdurrahman, born in the Syrian city of Banias, says government harassment of his family first sparked his interest in human rights work. He left for Britain in 2000, moving to Coventry, about 100 miles (160 kilometers) northwest of London, where the revenue from the clothes shop helps support him, his wife, and their young child.

He launched the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights in May of 2006, saying the activists he met while in Syria formed the group's core.

Counting the words out with his hand, Abdurrahman said his modus operandi was: "Document, verify, and publish."

That methodology has been put to the test in Syria, where both sides stand accused of peddling misinformation. Abdurrahman said his work was like navigating a "sea of lies."[That sounds like he is talking about the 'rebels and CIA, MI5, ISIS]

Abdurrahman boasts 230-odd informants on the ground, ranging from Syrian journalists who leak him stories on the sly to employees of military hospitals who fill him in on army casualties. He said he sticks to the journalistic gold standard of only accepting a story once it had been confirmed by a second source.

He claims to have rarely gotten it wrong, saying he could think of only two cases in which he overstated casualty figures. Other mistakes, such as confusing a car bombing with a mortar strike, were more common, but in every case he insisted errors were corrected.
[Full of himself]
"We're human, we make mistakes," he said. "But it's our intention not to repeat them."

A Leading News Source

Abdurrahman's accuracy matters because so many news organizations use his reporting. A review of stories published by three major newswires, including The Associated Press, over the past year show he's cited more often than SANA, Syria's government-run news agency.
[Not rocket science since war mongers are happy to peddle his lies and pay him a wage]
Experts attribute the exposure to Abdurrahman's non-stop publication schedule, and the fact that so many observers are barred from Syria and that others are at risk of kidnapping or worse. That means journalists, human rights groups, and even the United Nations - which put out its own death toll at more than 100,000 back in July - have to rely at least in part on his figures.[He tells them what they want to hear, yet knows he is a one man show living in Coventry]

That level of prominence worries those who harbor doubts about his organization.

"Let's assume good faith," said Nadim Shehadi, with London's Chatham House think tank. "Let's assume he's genuine, and qualified, and everything. He relies on too many sources to be able to check."[So since one cannot check, just swallow the lies and assume it to be true]

The problem with checking what's going on in Syria is that few people can gain access to the areas involved, said human rights researcher Cilina Nasser, who has collaborated with Abdurrahman in compiling casualty figures on several mass killings.

Nasser, who works for London-based Amnesty International, described Abdurrahman as careful and "usually accurate."

Her opinion was largely seconded by Lama Fakih, a researcher with New York-based Human Rights Watch.

"In broad strokes, the reporting is solid," she said.
[How does she make that assessment, without ways to verify his 'info'. Perhaps it is convenient]

Nasser said it was important to keep in mind that everyone - from Abdurrahman to the journalists charged with following up on his figures - labors under the same handicap.

"There's always something missing," she said, "which is us being on the ground."[Yet real journalist like Bartlett has gone there and verified things]

Source: The Associated Press

I ended up truthifying it a little for this thread, which was probable not really needed.

As expected it presents him with a sort of wonder, but the way it is put to together makes it a flattering picture of the man, who clearly is full of himself. The article has a person from Amnesty International and one from Human Rights Watch to put in a good word for and so does Chatham House Think tank, so he has the support from the Western regime changers as we know from those organisations.
 
Just came across this site that gives "real time updates" and current articles, with a link to the site that publishes the article for SOHR. Seems Reuters, the BBC and the Jerusalem Post are their main sponsors.

Breaking News - Syrian Observatory for Human Rights
http://www.breakingnews.com/topic/syrian-observatory-for-human-rights/

First article listed published on Tuesday Sept 13th:
Syria ceasefire: 'No civilian deaths on first day'
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-37346656

The cessation of hostilities in Syria that came into effect at sunset on Monday is largely holding on its first full day, reports suggest.

UK-based monitoring group the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said it had recorded no civilian deaths in the first 15 hours of the truce.

Residents in the embattled northern city of Aleppo reported calm. (Etc.)


Another Sept. 10th:
Toll from strikes on Syria's Idlib jumps to 58: monitor
https://sg.news.yahoo.com/toll-strikes-syrias-idlib-jumps-58-monitor-212338045.html

The death toll in air strikes on the key northwestern Syrian city of Idlib jumped to 58 late Saturday, a monitoring group said.

It was not immediately clear who carried out the raids, which hit a market and several neighbourhoods across the city.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the dead included 13 women and 13 children, but it was not immediately clear how many civilians were among the remaining victims.

The monitor said dozens more were wounded in the strikes, warning that the death toll could rise even further. (Etc.)


(Note - the other articles down the page are from a month ago or more but the site keeps updating with "alerts."
 
Laura said:
We ought to find out what media outlets use this bozo as a source and nail them here in the thread and on sott.

Since 7 years ago I started to learn french and I am listening to news podcasts in french while driving to practice. I listen to Radio France International _rfi.fr which helps me both to practice my listening skills and to realize how distorted is their view of the world's affaires from what I learn from Sott. About the syrian conflict they ALWAYS talk about the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights - l'Observatoire syrien des droits de l'Homme (OSDH) - while giving the news about Syria.

I've just done a search on google:

observatoire syrien site:rfi.fr

and there are more than 3 thousand results.
 
Aeneas said:
Thor said:
Laura said:
We ought to find out what media outlets use this bozo as a source and nail them here in the thread and on sott.

In Denmark, all the main stream papers quote SOHR all the time in the attempt to paint a picture that demonises Russia and glorifies the US led coalition. :(

If that is so, then we should also translate the two articles by Niall and Tony Cartalucci into Danish and get it up on Danish Sott. Let me know if you have time to translate.

I have some time this weekend and will start on the Cartalucci article.
 
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