The Syrian Center for Media and Freedom of Expression (SCM), extends its thanks and gratitude to all M/F colleagues who either directly or indirectly reached out and contacted us, noting the error contained in the report issued by SCM on World Press Freedom Day, the 03ed of May 2021, under the title “Syria: The Black Hole for Media Work; 10 years of Violations”.
After reviewing and checking all the tables and names by a special committee for this purpose, an error resulting from a technical issue related to the data entry process into the documentation tables in 2017, was exclusively identified. The error rate was (1.73) per cent, 29 out of 1670 cases.
As SCM apologizes for this error contained in the report and bears the full professional and ethical responsibility resulting from it, SCM re-publishes the statistical figures of the parties suspected of being responsible for the violations. Noting that this error did not affect the final results of the ranking of the violations’ perpetrators, which indicated that the Syrian government is the party responsible for the largest number of violations (795 violations), according to the following table:
|
Number of violations after correction |
Number of violations before correction | Actors of violations |
No. |
|
795 |
778 | Syrian Government |
1 |
|
171 |
196 | Armed Opposition |
2 |
|
164 |
162 | ISIS |
3 |
|
140 |
141 | Al-Nusra |
4 |
|
129 |
128 | Unknown actors |
5 |
|
106 |
106 | The Autonomous Administration |
6 |
| 78 | 72 | Russian federation |
7 |
|
38 |
38 | Turkey |
8 |
|
13 |
13 | Explosions + mines |
9 |
|
10 |
10 | Confrontations: Clashes between government forces and armed opposition without the possibility of identifying the source of fire |
10 |
|
6 |
6 | Syrian Salvation Government |
11 |
|
5 |
5 | Jordan public security |
12 |
|
5 |
5 | Lebanese security forces |
13 |
|
5 |
5 | Contractual party |
14 |
|
4 |
4 | Civilian assault |
15 |
|
1 |
1 | Syrian Interim Government |
16 |
SCM would like to thank the working group for this report of M/F staff and volunteers, and will take the following measures to address this error, and to reduce this type of error in the future:
- To publish a message of clarification and apology on all SCM’s platforms.
- To send a personal apology to colleagues whose cases were documented incorrectly.
- Working to address all the cases received by SCM that were not documented in the report, and subject these cases to the investigation and audit process in accordance with the documentation methodology followed in SCM.
- Correct the report and re-share it with the beneficiaries, including the modified nominal tables and the clarification.
- Stop using the Excel program and switch to the Air Table program, until the SCM’s special program is fully complete and installed, It is expected to be in use in early 2022.
- Attach an opinion questionnaire with each study or report issued by SCM in order to obtain the opinions and viewpoints of the target audience.
- Forming an independent arbitration committee to review, audit and scrutinize SCM’s studies and reports before issuing them.
- Working to secure the requirements of introducing quality management in SCM.
Mazen DARWISH
General Director
