Satellite dishes, Aleppo, Syria

Aleppo, one of the oldest towns in the world, has not escaped « modernity ». A forest of parabolic antennas picks up television programs from all over the world, relayed from space by satellites in geostationary orbit, a high orbit 36.000 km above the Earth. Television is now one of the most popular mediums in the world. It is not necessary to know how to read and write to watch a program. This makes television very accessible. Just over 40% of 22 million Syrians have parabolic antennas; 9,9 million own a mobile phone and 4,4 million are internet users, although it is controlled and sensored by authorities. In the past year, while the population, as others in the region, was fighting against the dictatorial regime, information was still circulating in the country and abroad. Images showing demonstrations, violent repression and violations of human rights were widely spread. Civilian deaths reached thousands. There is no doubt that if theses events occurred 20 years earlier, they would have happened behind closed doors, as happened in 1982 at Hama’s massacre. That year, the Syrian army repressed with blood shed (between 7.000 and 35.000 people were killed, according to sources) the demonstrations of the city dwellers. At the time, theses events where hardly covered by the media because Syria’s borders were closed and the media under strict survailance.