Syria Support Movement solidarity with the Syrian people
On the sixth anniversary of her death, we remember journalist Serena Shim.
Serena Shim worked for Press TV out of Tehran, Iran. She uncovered that the government of Turkey was supplying ISIS and Al Qaeda in Syria using the vehicles of “humanitarian” organizations. Shortly afterwards, she died under mysterious circumstances.
Today, an award has been created in her honour, called the Serena Shim Award for Uncompromised Integrity in Journalism: https://serenashimaward.org/
Patricia Dowling wrote:
“Have you ever heard of Serena Shim?
She is a journalist who grew up a few miles from me in Dearborn, Michigan. Her family called her Sassy.
Today is the 6th anniversary of her mysterious death. She died 10/19/2014 at age 29
Shim was interested in following stories about Syria and she found a job where her mother said, “they let Sassy tell the truth,” at Press TV.
Shim became fearful after tracking down a story about Turkey’s role in smuggling ISIS fighters into Syria on World Food Programme trucks.
In her final live broadcast, she described how agents from the Turkish National Intelligence Organization (MIT) had been asking questions about her movements while she was covering the siege of Kobani by IS militants.
The Turkish intelligence agency had labeled her a “spy,” she said, and pressed locals to “give them a phone call” if they saw her.
Since her death Shim has become a heroine of journalism. The Serena Shim Award for Uncompromised Integrity in Journalism was established in 2019. Her legacy is also celebrated at the Arab American National Museum (AANM), a Smithsonian Institution affiliate, in Dearborn, MI.
“The price of truth cost my daughter her life,” said Poe.
Shim was killed on October 19, 2014, two days after her last broadcast. She was the lone fatality following a car crash in Turkey’s Sanliurfa province.
The crash may not have been an accident. Official reports contain striking discrepancies.
On the anniversary of Shim’s death at age 29, her fate is a reminder that reporters on the ground risk their lives to inform the public of the ongoing conflict in Syria, and the human misery it is inflicting.
Shim’s first cousin, Judy Irish — who was the driver at the time of the crash — sustained only minor injuries and was taken to a nearby hospital in the city of Suruc.
Shim, meanwhile, was taken to a separate hospital in the city of Sanliurfa. It was over 30 miles away from where her cousin was treated.
“You would not have known she was gone,” Shim’s mother, Judith Poe, contended, describing her daughter’s appearance inside the morgue back in Lebanon.
“One little teeny piece of hair was out of place. Her makeup was completely on, her eyeliner. Everything. There was not a scratch on her.”
