According to Syrian media reports, ISIS has executed a female citizen journalist for reporting within its territory.
Ruqia Hassan worked as an independent reporter and went by the pseudonym Nisan Ibrahim on social media. Her execution will be the fifth one to be reported since October. Earlier this week, ISIS had released a video of five men being executed.
Abu Mohammed, who’s the founder of Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently (RBSS), a group that exposes cases of everyday human right abuses from within Syria, translated Hassan’s final words before her execution, on Twitter.
The exact date of her execution is not known, however, her posts on social media stopped on July 21, 2015. She was detained in Raqqa, the de facto capital of ISIS.
A journalist from RBSS told The Independent that ISIS accessed her social media profile to use it to trap other critics of the terrorist organisation.
Ruqia Hassan studied philosophy at Aleppo University. She then joined the uprising against Syrian president Bashar al-Assad. When Raqqa was seized, Ruqia had frequently used her Facebook page to voice her opinions about life in the city. In one of her Facebook post she wrote, “Everyday they ban, ban, ban, ban!”
According to a report on Arab news channel Al-Aan TV, Ruqia’s family was informed of her execution, three days ago, on charges of “espionage”.
Furat al-Wafaa, another independent journalist who worked with RBSS, told Syria Direct that Ruqia frequently participated in “all of the revolution’s protests”.
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