Is it true that the White Helmets made a staged video about rescuing a person from the rubble?

Over the past couple of months, Russian state media have often been talking about the Syrian organization “White Helmets” and its alleged staged videos. And we decided to remind you of the story of the Russia 24 channel and analyze its statements about one specific video.

The White Helmets, or Syrian Civil Defense, is a volunteer organization engaged medical assistance and rescue of civilians injured during the fighting in Syria in territories controlled by Syrian rebels. Another important one function organizations - video recording of what is happening. According to a number of Western journalists, the governments of Syria and Russia lead disinformation campaign to discredit the White Helmets.

So, on November 24, 2016 on the channel “Russia 24” came out exclusive report by military correspondent Evgeniy Poddubny. The synopsis states the following: “The day before, the Internet was blown up by another staged video of the human rights organization White Helmets.” The video shows how the camera pans for almost half a minute next to seemingly frozen rescuers and a victim of the collapse, whose face is covered in dust and blood. Then the characters “come to life”: a man under the rubble begins to scream, and volunteers from the White Helmets pull him to safety.

Here is a quote from the report (moment from the 5:12 mark): “At the same time, activists who are loyal to terrorists continue to produce staged materials about the alleged victims of Russian and Syrian airstrikes. A video of the pseudo-humanitarian organization “White Helmets” has appeared on the Internet. This is what they didn’t have time to cut off... But this is the part the audience should have seen. Photographs have also appeared that confirm that there is a structure in Eastern Aleppo that is professionally engaged in the production of fakes. Here is a victim smiling in an embrace with a rescuer, and here is the same victim in the uniform of a militant of the so-called Free Syrian Army. While Western audiences are watching such productions, and politicians are citing these videos as irrefutable evidence, in the eastern part of Aleppo, residents are dying of hunger due to the fault of terrorists.”

This video is often used as a compelling example of the staging of White Helmets rescue operations. For example, a screenshot from this video accompanies 2019 material “The helmets are split: in the UK they admitted guilt for chemical productions” on the website Vesti.ru. And here is an excerpt from special report Alexandra Lukyanov 2019 about exposing the organization (from the 22:50 mark): “The video that got onto the Internet by accident - they didn’t have time to edit it, because only this part was supposed to be seen by the audience.” And indeed, it is difficult to deny that this video is staged. But here’s the thing: its authors never hid the fact that this was a production.

In November 2016, a trend called the Mannequin Challenge (in Russian can be translated as “mannequin imitation challenge”) gained popularity on the Internet. As the name suggests, this flash mob involved people imitating mannequins in short videos, many of which went viral. The challenge began only at the end of October, but by the end of the year turned out to be most popular on Twitter. Moreover, many famous actors, athletes, politicians, singers and journalists took part in it.

And at the end of November, to a flash mob with his 54-second video called “On the Verge of Death” joined and the Syrian opposition media RFS (media office of the Revolutionary Forces of Syria). Judging by the comments, viewers perceived the idea ambiguously, and some did not understand the idea at all and decidedthat this is evidence of falsification. Apparently, due to the reaction of users, the video was deleted, but on the 22nd it was added again to the YouTube channel. “I must say that it is quite stupid for the White Helmets to make a video with the Mannequin Challenge, because there will be such comments (about falsifications. - Ed.),” wrote Bellingcat founder Eliot Higgins tweeted on the night of November 22.

24 November on BBC it turned out White Helmets statement: “This video and related posts were created by RFS Media with the participation of Syrian Civil Defense (White Helmets) volunteers who hoped to connect the horrors taking place in Syria with the rest of the world through the viral flash mob Mannequin Challenge. This was the wrong decision and we apologize on behalf of the volunteers involved. This video was not circulated through our official channels and we immediately took action to punish those responsible and prevent similar incidents from happening again. Our volunteers are committed to saving lives by responding to and reporting war crimes in Syria. This allows us to be attacked not only by bombs, but also by those who try to silence us for speaking the truth.”

And on November 23, a statement with clarifications released and on the RFS Media Office website. Below is the full text in our translation.

The video “On the Brink of Death” is an attempt to take part in an international flash mob under the hashtag #MannequinChallenge. And the “brilliant” media, controlled by Assad, present the simulation as reality! The video is originally a short staged scene from RFS Media Office as part of the international #MannequinChallenge campaign.

The video is intended to raise international awareness about the Syrian revolution in general and about civil defense members, highlighting their role and sacrifices in protecting and saving the lives of civilians in Syria. The video demonstrates the work of the White Helmets teams in the form of static mannequins to simulate reality. However, the regime used it to distort facts and perceptions.

As usual, Syrian regime media operatives took this video, did not tell its background, and began to use it in false stories that serve their own purposes and the goals of the Assad regime, which has been killing Syrians for almost six years, while accusing the RFS Media Office of creating fabricated videos of civil defense rescue operations.

Thus, the regime and its media have proven their isolation from the human and international context. Ignoring the massive Mannequin Challenge media campaign, which included international figures such as a former US presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, as well as Munich football club Bayern, only proves the serious isolation of the regime from the rest of the world.

RFS Media Office once again emphasizes that the video is a simulation of reality and part of the international flash mob #MannequinChallenge. The regime's unfounded claims about our video contain only half-truths and incomplete information due to the propaganda that Assad and his allies have waged against the Syrian people since the beginning of the Syrian revolution.

The RFS representative also reported BBC that activists occasionally use these types of campaigns to draw attention to the suffering of millions of ordinary Syrians. He recalled that in the past there had already been attempts to raise awareness of the conflict through actions with photos of children and Pokemon from the game Pokémon Go and with superheroes from the film "The Avengers".

Now, as for the actor who played the role of the victim. First of all, his name is Noor Al-Raslan, he is a photographer. And no one hid the behind-the-scenes photo that was shown on Rossiya 24 - Al-Raslan posted The photo is on my Facebook* back on November 16, 2016. The caption states that the photo was taken behind the scenes of the next small project, and the post also credits video editor Yasen Akhras. And wearing the Free Syrian Army uniform mentioned in the report, Al-Raslan starred in a short film from the RFS Media Office. Video posted freely available since at least October 2016. The description of the video includes the cameraman, director, screenwriter, and actors.

Let us note that since 2016, only one TV channel, “Russia 24,” has published at least six stories with the footage we are discussing. However, we do not see a unified editorial policy regarding them. One would think that at first the journalists made a mistake, but then they realized that the video was filmed as part of the Mannequin Challenge and began to mention it. However, this is not true. Chronologically, the first story was from November 23, 2016, in which correspondent Alexey Kazakov reported, that this is a flash mob from the White Helmets, but clarified that its full version was not intended for the general public. What this conclusion is based on remains unknown.

The second was the story of Evgeniy Poddubny, which we analyzed above, where there was not a word about the flash mob, only accusations of staging. There was also another broadcast by Kazakov, where he told: “Of course, only the second part of the video was intended for the Internet and Western media, but it still ended up on the Internet in its entirety. And I also got this photo. Having mastered the corpse pose (let me call them that), he pays tribute to another trend - he takes a selfie with the same unfortunate Syrian. They tried diligently to remove this picture and the video itself from the online space, but in vain.” However, he did not explain why to remove both parts of the challenge if only the second was intended for the Network. He also did not talk about what prevented the authors of the video from permanently deleting it from their official YouTube channel and why the actor did not delete the post with the photo from his page.

And in the special report “50 Shades of White” for December 20, 2016 at the 7:20 mark They say: “Victims are willing to pose and don’t rush into ambulances, like in this Mannequin Challenge-style video.” They did not report that there was only one “victim” in the video, who was actually an actor.

Thus, the authors of the Mannequin Challenge video never tried to hide the staged nature of the video, although the state channel said the opposite.

Image: video screenshot RFS Media Office

Half-truth

What do our verdicts mean?

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