Dr Rola

1 September 2013. Page re-vamp pending following receipt of more information about Dr Rola...

Who is Dr Rola?

Dr Rola - BBC Newsnight, 30 August 2013

Dr Rola Hallem MBBS, BSc, FRCA

From her 'role of honour' entry on the ATFAL website:

Rola is a doctor in anaesthesia and intensive care, with a passion for education, child and global health.

Drawing on her previous charitable work in sub-Saharan Africa, Rola has been working since the beginning of the Syria crisis on delivery of aid to Syria, raising awareness and advocacy.

Dr Rola Alkurdi FRCA

This page suggests Dr Rola Alkurdi, "Education Fellow + Registrar in Anaesthesia".

Appearances

BBC Newsnight on 30 August 2013

Introduced to BBC Newsnight viewers as "A British Doctor just back from volunteering in Syria who wants to be called 'Dr Rola'" an attractive thirty-something lady described her experience of an alleged napalm attack in Aleppo, Syria as "...one of the most horrific few hours of my life". Speaking in an educated English - with just a trace of East Midlands - accent, she gave a bravura, restrained-emotional performance describing the horrors she had witnessed and advocating Western military intervention in support of Syrian anti-government forces. It is not too much of a stretch to say that, had her interview been broadcast before the UK House of Commons vote which had declined military action a few hours earlier, the outcome may well have been different. Her performance was that persuasive. Her access to funding for her cause is clearly no problem because, during the interview she pointedly offered to host a 7 day visit by Ed Milliband and his family to Aleppo "... to see for himself and at my expense"

BBC Panorama Footage

In separate BBC Panorama footage which included video described as 'unverified' but shown nonetheless, a female introduced as "An English Doctor" was filmed in Aleppo in the claimed aftermath of the alleged attack. In a related Daily Telegraph article she was again described as an 'English Doctor working at a London Hospital' and volunteering for relief work in Syria through 'Hand-in-Hand-for-Syria' . Towards the end of the video she opined in an impeccably Estuary English accent "The whole world has failed our nation" - so, is she Syrian or English?

Although not explicitly stated, the strong impression conveyed in the Newsnight piece is that these two women are one and the same person, but the video clearly shows that they are different people. So who is she? because she is certainly NOT the Newsnight Dr Rola.

Further BBC TV News and Panorama coverage

In a report headlined BBC Crew returns to Aleppo on 30 September 2013, rehashed footage from the original programs was aired again. It featured BBC reporter Ian Pannel talking to two Hand in Hand for Syria female doctors. Presented as a heart-rending report of what is undoubtedly grave and genuine humanitarian suffering, it was nonetheless done in such as way as to very effectively demonise of the Syrian government.

The Nurse Nayirah affair

To those who remember the run-up to the first Iraq war in 1990, it carried disturbing echoes of the Nurse Nayirah episode, in which the daughter of the Kuwaiti ambassador to the US, anonymously and fraudulently claimed that she had witnessed Iraqi troops "throwing new-born babies from incubators and leaving them to die on the cold floor". She had been coached by the US PR firm Hill & Knowlton, retained by the Kuwait government to make the case for war, and her father sat behind her as she delivered her testimony (as simply a volunteer 'student nurse' who, for security reasons, wished to remain anonymous) before the US Congress.

Public right to know

You do not volunteer to appear on the flag-ship BBC Politics TV program advocating for a military bombing campaign with any realistic expectation - let alone right - to remain anonymous.

The use of medical, charitable and otherwise altruistic credentials as qualifications to advocate for military intervention of ANY kind - let alone the sort of cowardly stand-off high-tech carnage Dr Rola was effectively shilling for on BBC Newsnight is, by any civilised standard, deeply offensive behaviour.

Some important questions:

1. Dr Rola's Charity is called Hand in Hand for Syria. In its 29 July 2011 founding statement, Free Syrian Army leader Colonel Riad al-Asaad said:

... We announce the formation of the free Syrian army to work hand in hand with the people to achieve freedom and dignity to bring this regime down, protect the revolution and the country’s resources, and stand in the face of the irresponsible military machine that protects the regime.”

Is this conguence of name and FSA objectives mere coincidence?

2. Dr Rola's maiden name is al-Kurdi. The Deputy leader of the Free Syrian Army is Colonel Malik al-Kurdi.

How close is that family name connection?

3. The original BBC piece claimed the school attack took place during the last week of August 2013 and killed at least 10 children. However, Syrian school holidays run from 30 June to 1 September.

Why were so many children at school during the school holiday period?

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In the fraught circumstances of a rising drum-beat crescendo for military intervention in Syria, the public has an absolute right to know exactly who Dr Rola is and what her connections are.

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Request for information

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Anti-Israeli Torture Letter

Dr Rola Alkurdi was one of 725 doctors who signed a 2009 open letter demanding the dismissal of newly-appointed WMA president, Dr Yoram Blachar because of Israeli doctors complicity in the torture of Palestinians

See Also

• Nurse_Nayirah
• Hand in Hand for Syria