15 Jul, 2010

Damascus - "Skeyes"
The Syrian authorities closed "the Syrian International Academy for Training and Development (SIA)" on Saturday, 10/7/2010 and without knowing the reasons behind this action.

The Syrian International Academy for Training and Development is the center of "Al Jazeera" Channel for Training Centre of it, which is owned by Dr. Nizar Maihoub, the previous foreign media director in the Ministry of Information, who refused to talk about the details and confirmed that it is "a temporary procedure."

The sources said that Maihoub met with the trainees and told them that he "could" re-open the academy soon, and if not, it will be "re paid the amounts to them in full.
An opposition journalist in Damascus astonished from this action and added that "Dr. Maihoub has close ties with the regime, and he is very close to the decision-makers in Syria."

The journalist added " The decision of the closure could be because of the participation of the Academy in training of Syrian journalists with the Institute for War and Peace" IWPR ", which has recently been calling most of the journalists who have attained the training courses at the Institute Academy for investigation with them by the external branch of the Department of General Intelligence."
The Syrian International Academy had agreed with the Institute for War and Peace, to make training courses in journalism at the Academy, where it provides technical services in return for agreed wages between them.

The Institute for War and Peace is a British Foundation has worked for two years in Syria, which has prepared reports and published numerous articles on its website in English; the Institute translated many articles into Arabic and has published them in various Syrian sites. Articles talked about the important issues like the Kurdish and human rights issues, democracy and freedom of expression in Syria, as well as several social and cultural articles.

Syrian International Academy entered into agreements for training for "Aljazeera Center in Qatar" and several international institutions such as "Monte Carlo Radio" and "France Radio" and it has trained journalists from the Syrian news agency "SANA" and "October" newspaper.
The Academy is located in Mazze highway in front of AlGalaa Hotel, in the building which cost millions of dollars, and members of the Board of Directors are: Dr. Issa Darwish, the former Assistant of Syrian Foreign Minister, former Minister of Information and former Syrian ambassador to Saudi Arabia Dr. Mahdi Dakhlallah, and Dr. Ibrahim Darraji, a teacher of international law at the Faculty of Law, at the University of Damascus, and Faculty of International Relations and Diplomacy at the University of Kalamoon, in addition to others. The Academy is headed by Dr. Nizar Maihoub, the lecturer in the Department of Public Information University of Damascus, and a teacher in the Department of Open Education at the University of Damascus