 | |
Type of site | News |
|---|---|
| Available in | Arabic, English, Kurdish, Russian, Spanish, Turkish |
| Area served | Syria |
| Owner | Unknown |
| Created by | Unknown |
| Editor | Unknown |
| URL | hawarnews |
| Advertising | Yes |
| Commercial | Unknown |
| Registration | Optional |
| Launched | August 2012; 13 years ago (2012-08) |
| Current status | Active |
Hawar News Agency (sometimes abbreviatedANHA) (Kurdish:Ajansa Nûçeyên a Hawar;Arabic:وكالة أنباء هاوار) is anews agency.[1][2] The site started as an Arabic-only news service.[3] Hawar News is linked to theAutonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES)[4] and its armed forces theSyrian Democratic Forces (SDF).[5]
The ownership of the Hawar News Agency is unpublished. The website's domain name was first registered in August 2012.[6] The site'sAbout page says just"ANHA".[7] Pro-Syrian opposition source Verify-sy claims Hawar News is affiliated with theDemocratic Union Party (PYD).[8]
A number of its journalists have been killed in theSyrian civil war.
In 2022, Issam Abdullah and others, includingStêrk TV [ku] worker Mohammed Jarada, were allegedly targeted during Turkish airstrikes in northern Syria. Abdullah was killed and Jarada injured.[4][9] TheCommittee to Protect Journalists called for Turkish authorities to swiftly investigate the events.[10]
Cîhan Bilgin and Nazim Daştan were killed by aTurkish airstrike in December 2024 whilst working as freelancers for ANHA.[11][12] The attack was condemned by the Dicle Firat Journalists’ Union[13][11] and thePress Workers Union of Turkey.[11] In later protests on the issue, a number of their members were detained by Turkish police.[14][15] Turkish journalists and the leaders of theIstanbul Bar Association have subsequently faced criminal charges over their reporting of the airstrike.[16][17] Consequently theTurkish Journalists Union has called on the government to abandonstate policies hostile to journalists.[18] TheNational Union of Journalists andInternational Federation of Journalists have both condemned the attack on Bilgin and Daştan and called for theSyrian transitional government to "carry out an independent investigation into these murders, as well as to identify and convict the perpetrators of these crimes".[19]
The site has been repeatedly hacked in 2018,[20] 2019,[21] and 2022.[22][23]
The Turkish telecommunications regulator blocked access to several news agencies in July 2015.[24] The block followed the end of theKurdish Turkish peace process[24] and was described as acounter-terrorism action. Other Kurdish language or left-wing news sites based within and outsideTurkey that were banned at the same time as Hawar News includedRudaw,Dicle News Agency, andÖzgür Gündem.[24]
Phone +96352463446 (Hasaka Syria number)
Kurdish news agency
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