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Serena Shim was killed one year ago. On 19 October 2014 a vehicle collided with hers. She died on the spot and the truck later disappeared. This was reported by the Iran’s “Press TV”. The “suspicious” accident prompted criticism and the governor of the province of Sanliurfa promised a report to clarify the facts. This was never done.
Serena, born in Michigan, was a dual US and Lebanese national. She was 29 years old when she was killed and a mother of two children, a girl and a boy. Two days before her death she had publicly denounced threats from the Turkish secret services (MIT). The MIT had accused her of spying during the siege of Kobanê. The Syrian Kurdish city was then under attack by the Islamic State, and Serena Shim denounced the collaboration of Turkish forces with Sunni fundamentalists. Her accusation was clear: IS volunteers were arriving at the border between Turkey and Syria in trucks belonging to alleged NGOs. Once these trucks reached the border, the Turkish Government then helped them cross into Syria to fight against the Kurdish movement. Two days earlier she had said “I’m scared because the MIT has threatened me for revealing it.”
It would be great to be able to say that she had not died in vain. That her death served to change things. It did not. The only thing that has changed is that, since then, no journalist has dared to denounce the collusion of the Turkish Islamist AKP’s government with the Islamist organization Islamic State.
