Anti-IS scribe murdered in Turkey

Ankara, Dec 28: An anti-Islamic State (IS) jourlist, activist and filmmaker has been shot dead in broad daylight in Turkey, the media reported on Monday. ji Jerf, 38, was shot on Sunday with a silenced pistol in downtown Gaziantep, near the Syrian border, BBC reported.

Jerf was the film director for ‘Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently’ (RBSS), a group of jourlists who risk their lives daily to report on IS abuses. It is the second murder of a member of the group, after Ahmad Mohammed al-Mousa was killed in Syria.

Jerf was a vocal critic of the IS. He directed two recent documentaries about the group — one about the killing of Syrian activists in Aleppo, the other about the work of RBSS. A friend of Jerf said the filmmaker’s family had been granted asylum in France and was due to travel to Paris this week. As well as his work with RBSS, Jerf was editor-in-chief of Hentah, a Syrian magazine that reports on the “daily lives of Syrian citizens”, according to the publication’s website. (IANS)