Farzat announces the suspension of al-Doumari
Syria, Politics, 1/24/2002

The renowned Syrian caricaturist Ali Farzat has announced the suspension of the privately owned daily satirical al-Doumari.

This decision, however, raised just very limited reaction after the paper has started to deteriorate recently under various pressures mainly internal and this was manifested in its recent issues.

On Tuesday evening Farzat announced the suspension of the weekly which is published every Monday under the pretext of the conditions imposed by the general establishments for printing and publications over which he said that " fulfliling all its conditions will lead to heavy ( financial ) losses." As for claims on al-Doumari financial losses because of the " monopoly of the Syrian distribution establishment." Sources concerned say this matter is exaggerated, as sources of al-Domouri itself indicate that its circulation number decreased in the recent months from 57,000 by the beginning ( the highest circulation number by a Syrian private publication to 18,000 copies after the said weekly stopped to be that big event in the Syrian street.

Al-Doumari which was founded by Ali Farzat witnessed an unprecedented turnout but, drastically declined because of what was seen as a series of " professional " mistakes and the numerous repeated changes in its editorial team.

After one year of its foundation al-Doumari could not make of itself an establishment. Its employees complained that they receive their salaries without receipts and they enjoy no insurance privileges, and never had a contract with al-Doumari administration. Besides this weekly suffered several professional wrongs. Many times there is a headline about an issue but it turned to be no article inside the issue itself. The paper's dramatic collapse also lied in that it had gradually changed into a satire free from any constructive criticism. It once criticizes the performance of the government and the next day it praised the same government's performance.

What was also worse for the paper is the series of resignation which also included the travel of its chief editor Adnan Farzat ( brother of the publisher Ali) who went the Arab Gulf to assume his work again there.Thus Adnan marked the series of resignation the paper started with the name of renowned Syrian journalists like the Syrian writer and journalist Nabeel Saleh ( from Tishreen) and the two other Syrian journalists Najm Eddine al-Samman and Ammar Musare'.

Al-Doumari also collided with the Syrian prime minister Muhammad Mustafa Miro, and this led to canceling two pages from the weekly in which Farzat published two of his caricatures. After that incident Farzat started to talk about difficulties al-Doumari is facing " under the pressure of the government." However no friction took place openly between the two sides.

Previous Stories:
  Al-Hariri arrives today in Damascus   (1/23/2002)
  Syria: Addomari published in two empty pages   (6/19/2001)
  Ali Farzat and al-Doumari Syrian satirical weekly problems   (6/19/2001)

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