Hussam Eesa - Journalist, Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently HARDtalk

Now on BBC News, it's time for HARDtalk.

Welcome to HARDtalk Mark. I am Sarah Montague. There are very few, if

any, journalists, in the Syrian town of Raqqa. Almost anything we know of

what life is like under Islamic State comes from the group Raqqa is

Being Slaughtered Silently. It was set up by students to document what

Islamic State is doing and to counter the propaganda. Among its

members is my guest today, Hussam Eesa. It is a story of extraordinary

and brave resistance, but one that comes at a huge price. Hussam Eesa,

welcome to HARDtalk. Your group, Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently,

it is not a big group. It is small in numbers. Yet, you have paid a

very high price for what you have been doing. What are the numbers of

members, family, friends, who have been killed.

And yet the size of the group is how many?

You are here to pick up a prize for your journalism from the Media

Awards. It is interesting. It isn't necessarily journalism. Is that how

you see it, journalism? By the new have chosen to fight the

regime with journalism. -- but you have chosen to. Have you chosen to

fight in other ways? Have any view ever picked up a weapon?

OK, well, let's go back to the beginning. Actually, before RBSS was

set up, it was you and a group of friends initially protesting against

Bashar al-Assad. And you were excited when the

protests started and by the idea of revolution?

But, what were you doing at the time? You weren't a journalist

student at the time, were you? So, then came the protest all two,

which you joined, and you were excited at the idea that Bashar

al-Assad would go. -- protests. What went wrong? It was in the years

after that, 2012, 2013, that Islamic State fighters began to appear.

So, you think it was in President Assad's interest to have Islamic

State form and be a different opposition?

OK. Well, let's come back to that. Take me back to the point at which

you decided to set up Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently, which was when

the beheadings started in Raqqa. What did you and your friends decide

to do? And how did you go about it? I know

much of it was through taking a mobile phone and videoing what was

happening on the streets. But, what is interesting, in a way,

is that, while so-called Islamic State, Daesh, was putting their

videos of beheadings on line, you were trying to document far more

mundane and ordinary things, like our hospitals were getting help and

people were getting food to document this society. -- like how hospitals.

Because, what had been happening as a result, partly of their videos,

was that they were attracting a lot off of foreign fighters. -- lot of.

Can you remember when you started seeing people from Europe, people

from other parts of the world, appearing in Raqqa?

And there were many of them, were there?

Was IS being fuelled, was the power of Islamic State, so-called Islamic

State, coming from the foreign fighters, from wherever they were

coming from, rather than from Syria? But in terms of what Islamic State

were doing in Raqqa, was it people he knew? Were the Syrians just as

responsible as the foreign fighters? What did you see at that time in the

city of Raqqa? Did you yourself see beheadings, Rusev evictions that

were ordered? -- crucifixions. And you and your friends would see

what was going on in the street, these stonings, and your friends

were also recording beheadings and crucifixions?

Can you give us a sense of what it was like when you came home and

spoke to your friends about some of these awful things you had seen?

But why? What was it that made you feel there was something you could

do? But for you and your friends to go

out and record things knowing that you are going to take that video

home and put it online, if you had been stopped by anyone from IS, you

could have lost your life. And it was when you're founding

member, your friend, was first arrested, and his laptop taken, that

they had information about the rest of you, and that made you very

vulnerable, didn't it? But what was strange, especially

strange, is when you decided to leave Raqqa and went to Turkey, you

were getting messages from IS, 20? Saying we've got you, we're going to

get you? -- went you? And yet you still, they followed you

there with their messages? And then they were both killed in

Turkey? Can you tell us about that? Was particularly gruesome, not least

because it was somebody they knew, somebody they thought of as a

friend, and then stabbed them 80 times and beheaded them.

And you now have left Turkey. It is not safe. You are living in Europe

will stop do you feel safe now, would you still feel they could kill

you? -- in Europe. And they are worried about you

because of what you are still posting online? I wonder, you have

had so many close friends, people you knew very well and have gone

through so much with, who have been killed because of this. Does it make

you feel like giving up, or does it make you feel that you have to carry

on even if you don't want to? And what is the latest information

that you have about Raqqa now? Because IS, Daesh, are under

pressure. They have been losing territory, and even Raqqa now, there

are Syrian regime troops on the outskirts to stop what information

do you have about what life in Raqqa is like now?

It is one of the things your group does, report not just on IS, Daesh,

but also in the regime, barrel bombs, and air strikes by Russian

forces and the US. When you think about what might happen, although

you are very critical of President Assad, do you think ultimately he

would be the lesser of two evils? Do you feel betrayed to the West? --

by the West? Given all you have said about

Islamic State holding onto Raqqa, President Assad not taking it, can

you imagine a point at which you will want to go back to back? --

Raqqa? So can you see any way out of this

dire situation? And in Raqqa now, what is life like

for your family? What is it like just in the everyday business of

getting food, living, working? And the 18 of your group inside

Raqqa, the ten of you outside, do you still feel you are making a

difference and that you could ultimately take a difference for the

people in Raqqa? Hussam Eesa, thank you for coming on

HARDtalk. Hello. Good morning. After a dry

date for most on Tuesday, Wednesday sees some patchy and mostly light

rain spilling up across south-west England and South Wales into the

mainland towards the Humber. To the