For years, the Syrian journalist Hussama Hammoud has collaborated with French and foreign media, including Radio France, Mediapart, Le Monde, France 24, BFM-TV, The Guardian or the BBC. He signed noted surveys on terrorism and crimes of Daesh, an organization against which he has always fought. After the withdrawal of the international coalition of this area, he had to flee Raqqa in an emergency in October 2019. He has since been refugee in Turkey, where he continued his work as a journalist, in particular on the funding of the Islamic State. And where he is again threatened by terrorist groups.
Monday September 5, Hussam Hammoud was denied his humanitarian visa request by France in a lapidary type email. He hoped, if it had been accepted as was the case for other Syrian journalists, being able to ask for asylum and shelter his family. At 30, he believes that his life and dreams are “destroyed”. To refuse this visa to him is to keep it under the threat of armed groups and put his life in danger.
In the spring of 2019, he provided, with the help of French journalist Céline Martelet, unpublished documents on Daesh at the National Prosecutor’s Office French, who then recognized “very important work”. Like thousands of Syrian refugees in Turkey, Hussam Hammoud risks expulsion to Syria, where death awaits him – he has already been tortured by foreign jihadists.
“Our state of right cannot afford such unworthiness “
France cannot remain silent and indifferent to its fate, while it has the power to act and protect a journalist who risked her life to inform our fellow citizens, and who is today more than ever threatened Due to the profession he exercises. In 2021, already, the Afghan journalist Elyaas Ehsas had close to the expulsion (towards Sweden) because France refused to study his request for protection, while his relatives had been evacuated by the French authorities after the fall of Kabul. After months of clandestinity and mobilization, he had finally been authorized to submit his asylum application in France.
We, unions and societies of journalists signatory to this appeal, urgently ask the government, and in particular the ministries of the interior and culture, to grant a humanitarian visa to Hussam Hammoud, in the name of freedom of ‘Inform and be informed, pillars of our democracy, and to grant Hussam Hammoud the elementary recognition for its assistance to the defense of our values and our security.
do not give up a journalist thus exposed to Turkey, who can give him to the authorities of a country he left at any time because he was threatened with death. Our rule of law cannot afford such indignity.