ABSTRACT
In March 2011, Syria saw nationwide protests calling for democratic reform and respect for human rights. In response, the ruling Assad government initiated a genocidal crackdown on dissent that was supplemented by an internationalised and multi-faceted media campaign intended to erode global public trust in the videos and images activists were sharing to expose the regime’s crimes. Analysing the strategies used as part of the regime’s disinformation campaign, this chapter maintains that a key element of the regime’s operations has revolved around the concept of ‘absenting’ images. The chapter then provides an analysis of Wujoud Collective’s short film Testimony of a former detainee, proposing a reconceptualisation of Syrian visual activism—one that makes use of the ‘absent image’ concept as a means of exposing and thus sabotaging the regime’s disinformation strategies.
