{"id":281461,"date":"2016-11-24T13:27:16","date_gmt":"2016-11-24T18:27:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rael.org\/?p=281461"},"modified":"2020-10-30T13:31:54","modified_gmt":"2020-10-30T17:31:54","slug":"white-helmets-backlash-after-mannequin-challenge-video","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/noproxy.rael.org\/fa\/white-helmets-backlash-after-mannequin-challenge-video\/","title":{"rendered":"White Helmets backlash after Mannequin Challenge (video)"},"content":{"rendered":"
RAEL\u2019S COMMENT:<\/strong><\/span><\/h5>\n
All fake, like many mainstream \u201cnews\u201d propaganda.<\/strong><\/span><\/h5>\n

 <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

It is an achingly familiar scene. An injured man lies in the rubble as two members of the Syria Civil Defence group – known as the White Helmets – come to his aid, another apparent victim of Syria’s bloody civil war.<\/p>\n

But all is not as it seems.<\/p>\n

The man and the White Helmets appear frozen. The whole scene is in fact posed.<\/p>\n

The men are performing their version of the Mannequin Challenge in a video released by activists from the Revolutionary Forces of Syria (RFS) “to raise awareness of the suffering of the Syrian people”.<\/p>\n

Nominated for this year’s Nobel Peace Prize, the White Helmets comprise roughly 3,000 volunteer rescue workers in rebel-held areas.<\/p>\n

Since 2013, they have searched for survivors in the aftermath of the deadly air strikes raining down on Syria’s towns and cities,\u00a0saving thousands of lives.<\/p>\n

They say they are non-partisan and a regular source of video and eyewitness accounts from the thick of the fighting.<\/p>\n

But critics, often pro-Assad or pro-Russia accounts on social media, allege links to jihadist groups and have long claimed that the organisation fabricates reports and rescues.<\/p>\n

This latest video has seen those critical voices grow louder, while the stunt has left others bemused.<\/p>\n

In a statement to the BBC, the White Helmets acknowledged the involvement of two of their volunteers but said the video had not been sanctioned by the group’s leadership team.<\/p>\n

“The video and the related posts were recorded by RFS media with Syria Civil Defence (White Helmets) volunteers, who hoped to create a connection between the horror of Syria and the outside world, using the viral Mannequin Challenge,” the statement read.<\/p>\n

“This was an error of judgement, and we apologise on behalf of the volunteers involved.<\/p>\n

“The video was not shared on our official channels, and we took immediate action to discipline those involved and prevent incidents such as this from happening again.<\/p>\n

“Our volunteers are committed to saving lives by responding to, and reporting, war crimes in Syria.<\/p>\n

“This leaves us open to attacks, not just from the bombs but from those who seek to silence us for telling the truth.”<\/p>\n

A spokesman for the RFS told the BBC that the activist group occasionally used this kind of campaign to help shine a spotlight on the suffering of millions of ordinary Syrians.<\/p>\n

He pointed out that in the past it had attempted to raise awareness of the conflict by leveraging the popularity of computer game\u00a0Pokemon Go\u00a0and comic-book heroes\u00a0The Avengers.<\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news\/world-middle-east-38066791<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

RAEL\u2019S COMMENT: All fake, like many mainstream \u201cnews\u201d propaganda.  <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":71,"featured_media":281462,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-281461","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/noproxy.rael.org\/fa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/281461","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/noproxy.rael.org\/fa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/noproxy.rael.org\/fa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/noproxy.rael.org\/fa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/71"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/noproxy.rael.org\/fa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=281461"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/noproxy.rael.org\/fa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/281461\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/noproxy.rael.org\/fa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/281462"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/noproxy.rael.org\/fa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=281461"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/noproxy.rael.org\/fa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=281461"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/noproxy.rael.org\/fa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=281461"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}