Dorothy Parvaz missing in Syria

We heard the horrors of Lara Logan’s assault while  reporting the Egyptian uprising in Cairo on 60 minutes last Sunday.  Reporter Dorothy Parvaz is missing in Syria.  Dorothy is a reporter for Al Jazeera who was covering the unrest there.

Daraa, a drought-plagued city, has been under siege for a week since the regime sent in troops backed by tanks and snipers to crush protests. Electricity, power and fuel have been cut and the military has largely sealed off the area.

“I have never been so scared in all my life,” said one Daraa resident who fled late Sunday to an area some 10 miles (16 kilometers) away.

“Security men have divided Daraa into four parts … there was indiscriminate shelling yesterday, people are terrified,” he told The Associated Press Monday. “It’s like a military barracks there.”

Also Monday, Arab satellite TV station Al-Jazeera said one of its journalists, DorothyParvaz, 39, has not been heard from since arriving Friday in Damascus. Parvaz, who had U.S., Iranian and Canadian citizenship, was a former reporter and columnist for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.

“We are deeply concerned for Dorothy’s safety, security, and well-being. We are requesting full cooperation from the Syrian authorities to determine what happened at the airport, what her current location is, and the status of her health,” Al-Jazeera said in a statement.

The Oregonian reports that Parvaz’s husband, a West Linn High School and Lewis and Clark College graduate hasn’t heard from since Friday.

In Damascus, a witness said security forces dispersed a group of about 100 women in the capital who were carrying banners of support for the women and children of Daraa.

Ten minutes into the protest, police broke it up by force, beating a few of the women, said the witness, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals.

The witness accounts could not be independently confirmed. Syria keeps tight restrictions on the media and has expelled foreign journalists and restricted access to trouble spots.

Al Jazeera is demanding the release of Dorothy.

Al Jazeera has demanded immediate information from Syria about one of its journalists who has been missing in the country since Friday afternoon.

Dorothy Parvaz left Doha, Qatar, for Syria on Friday to help cover events currently taking place in the country. However, there has been no contact with the 39-year-old since she disembarked from a Qatar Airways flight in Damascus.

Parvaz is an American, Canadian and Iranian citizen. She joined Al Jazeera in 2010 and recently reported on the Japanese earthquake and tsunami for the network.

She graduated from the University of British Columbia, obtained a masters from Arizona University, and held journalism fellowships at both Harvard and Cambridge. She previously worked as a columnist and feature writer for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer in the US.

An Al Jazeera spokesman said: “We are concerned for Dorothy’s safety and wellbeing. We are requesting full cooperation from the Syrian authorities to determine how she was processed at the airport and what her current location is. We want her returned to us immediately.”

When asked about Parvaz’s case, Ali Akbar Salehi, the Iranian foreign minister, said: “We demand the government of Syria look into this case.”

Dorothy was born in Iran of a Iranian father and an American mother.  She lived in Canada during her youth. We hope she has the support of  these countries and their consulates.  Syria is run by a brutal regime that is known for the usual horrible conditions in prison.   It is important that her story gets out.