News | 25 05 2020
July 17, 2018, corresponds to the fifth anniversary of Rozana Media Foundation, the media outlet that reports the hardships and hopes of Syrians at home and abroad. Rozana Radio started broadcasting on July 17, 2013, relying on a group of professional journalists, citizen journalists, technicians and a wide network of reporters deployed inside Syria, in neighbouring countries and around the world.
Rozana Foundation opened its Paris office in 2013 and in November 2014 its first regional office was opened in Gaziantep, southern Turkey, near the Syrian border.
Rozana established its training centre SMS in 2018, and carried out its first project in cooperation with the Asfari Foundation and the International Media Support organisation. There will also be other stages to train future trainers and cooperate with them in order to provide training for a large number of journalists and Syrian citizen journalists throughout the upcoming period.
Rozana lost a number of its reporters in Syria inside the prisons of the regime. One of its correspondents, Mohammad al-Qasem, was killed in Idlib countryside and others were captured by al-Nusra Front and ISIS. Their fate is still unknown (we prefer not to mention their names as this case is very special).
Rozana won several awards:
-On May 3, 2018, the CEO of Rozana, Lina Chawaf, received the 2018 Reporters Without Borders’ Press Freedom Award, in the Swedish capital Stockholm.
- Rozana won the second prize of the Migration Media Award dealing with migration in the Euro-Mediterranean region, for one of the episodes of the Fox program presented by media journalist Sulafah La’abidi, broadcasted from the radio studio in Paris.
- Rozana won the Pulitzer Prize for its participation in Panama documents, particularly those investigating the businessman Rami Makhlouf, the relative of head of the the Syrian regime Bashar al-Assad, in May 2017.
- Radio Rozana won the Mariano Cebrián award for the best Radio station project and online Radio on October 19, 2015, at a conference held by Aragon radio and TV Channel in the Spanish city Zaragoza.
Radio Rozana also participated in the Russian money laundering survey that was conducted with the support and supervision of Arab Reporters for Investigative Journalism (ARIJ) and the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP)
Rozana started broadcasting as a shortwave radio in June 2017 and covering the Turkish city of Gaziantep and northern Syria at 98.5 wave frequency.
Rozana offers a number of programs and services, and deals with the affairs of Syrians at home and abroad, in addition to the news covering the Syrian file, humanely, politically and militarily.
Rozana identifies itself as an independent media foundation that does not abide by any political or religious agendas. It discusses the Syrian issues and is keen to review the different views during its programs. Rozana aspires to be a voice that supports democratic values in Syria, and encourages the commitment to the concepts of citizenship and justice. Rozana stresses that Syria accepts all Syrians with their different orientations. It also seeks to create a professional journalistic culture by shedding light on the humanitarian, social and political issues in Syria.