Raqqa Is Being Slaughtered Silently (RSS or RBSS; Arabic: الرقة تذبح بصمت, romanized: al-Raqqah Tadhbaḥu bi-Ṣamt) is a citizen journalist group[1][2] reporting Syrian war news and human rights abuses by Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and other forces occupying the northern Syrian city of Raqqa which ISIL used as its de facto capital.
[6][7][8][9] Since no foreign or domestic journalists could operate in Raqqa during the ISIL occupation, the efforts of RBSS provided unique insights.
On October 30, 2015, RBSS activist Ibrahim Abdul Qadir (age 20) and his friend Fares Hamadi were found stabbed and beheaded in Urfa, Turkey.
On December 16, 2015, masked men murdered RBSS member Ahmad Mohammed al-Mousa in the then rebel held city of Idlib, Syria.
[15] Naji al Jerf, the group's film director and editor-in-chief of the independent monthly Hentah, was killed in Gaziantep, Turkey with a silenced pistol in broad daylight outside a media building in late December 2015.
[16][17][18] In an interview with Sarah Montague on BBC HARDtalk, aired June 22, 2016, RBSS spokesman Hussam Eesa said, via interpreter, "When we chose to work together against Daesh, documenting its abuses, we understood there would be casualties.
[19] RBSS members broke the story of the failed U.S. special forces raid to save journalist James Foley and the other hostages.
The citation said in part "While RBSS was formed to document the atrocities of [ISIL], its members have also reported critically on the Assad government's bombings, other rebel forces, and civilian casualties caused by U.S.-led airstrikes".
[13][14] RBSS was given the 2016 Civil Courage Prize for "risking their lives on a daily basis to document the abuses of the Islamic State.
Their bravery quite extraordinary" and wrote "Where [ISIL] presented a functioning, just government, RBSS showed the scarcity and brutality.