Syria Support Movement solidarity with the Syrian people
—– Forwarded Message —–
From: Syria Solidarity Movement <solidarity@syriasolidaritymovement.org>
To: “editorial-english@alaraby.co.uk” <editorial-english@alaraby.co.uk>
Sent: Friday, May 27, 2016 9:03 AM
Subject: Corrections to article “Assad’s Allies in the West”
There are many inaccuracies and untrue statements of fact in the following article:
Two of the most egregious falsehoods occur in the statement “Some writers in this milieu share ties more significant than their dissenting opinions: Bartlett, Beeley, Larudee and Sterling are all steering committee members of an organisation named the “Syria Solidarity Movement” – an activist group and registered nonprofit which has collected more than $1,545,000 in gross receipts from donors since its founding in 2007″, as follows.
- The Syria Solidarity Movement was not founded in 2007. It was founded in 2013.
- The Syria Solidarity Movement has not collected “more than $1,545,000 in gross receipts from donors”, even during its entire history. It is only one of many projects of the Association for Investment in Popular Action Committees, which is its fiscal sponsor. The figure quoted in the article is for the total gross receipts of the corporation, not for the Syria Solidarity Movement. Most of the funds were for Palestine projects and especially to send (successfully) boats to Gaza in 2008. All donations ever received by the Syria Solidarity Movement represent less than 1% of the total.
In addition, the statement, “SSM has organised demonstrations ‘in support of the Syrian government'” is totally false. We have never organized any demonstration of any kind, anywhere.
Although the inaccuracies are much more extensive than these three statements, please issue a retraction and correction of these three. It is unfortunate to see such poor fact checking by the journalist who wrote this.
Paul Larudee, Treasurer
Syria Solidarity Movement
