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Serena Shim

Serena Shim8 posts
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25 Oct, 2014

From Tennessee

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A friend of Shim’s says that she was planning to return home:

She was a wonderful young lady from Tennessee working as a reporter for Press TV in southern Turkey. She was preparing to return to the United States and to her mother. She was a lovely young woman, smart, funny, hardworking, very American, open, optimistic. She wanted to help the world and alleviate struggle

24 Oct, 2014

Official report: Camerawoman is ‘sole culprit’

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Hurriyet Daily News says that an official report concludes that Irish is the ‘sole culprit’ in the crash that killed Shim and injured Irish herself. Crash report from gendarmes in the city of Suruç in the province of Şanlıurfa, where Shim was staying:

[Irish] entered the junction too fast, violating a lane as well as traffic rules by turning right.

The report states that the speedometer of the rented car shows it went above 70 kmh (50 mph) before crashing into the cement mixer driven by Salan. Irish remains in hospital.

23 Oct, 2014

Funeral

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Hundreds of people gather and shots are fired into the air as Shim is buried at the Burj el-Barajneh cemetery in the south of Beirut. Her father, Aly Shim:

We are proud of her, she was born to be a hero and remained a hero until the end, working on the frontline

20 Oct, 2014

Dies in car crash

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Shim, a Lebanese-American reporter for Press TV, is killed in a car crash in Turkey a day after stating that Turkish intelligence was spying on her. She had been reporting that ISIS militants had crossed the border in trucks used by NGOs to carry food. Press TV broadcast:

Just a couple of days ago she had been threatened by Turkish intelligence

https://twitter.com/shabbirh/status/524140074792148992

Press TV analyst: She was assassinated

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Ali, a political analyst based in London, tells Press TV in an interview that Shim was pursued by the Turkish intelligence service. Ali, using another name for ISIS or the Islamic State:

[She was] assassinated [because] she gave the truth about what this regime in Turkey, that has been oppressing its people, that has been oppressing the Kurdish population and that is actively working to support…this terrorist organization known as the ISIL

19 Oct, 2014

Report: Shim is killed in car crash

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Daily Sabah reports that Shim died at the scene of the crash Sunday. It doesn’t give the time of death. Shim and her camerawoman were traveling in the rented car in Suruc near the Syrian border when they collided with a truck. It states the driver of the truck was questioned by police and released. Shim was married, with two children.

17 Oct, 2014

‘Accused of spying’

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Shim tells Press TV that she has been accused of spying:

I think it’s definitely because of the reporting about Syria [about] the so-called Free Syrian Army going in [Syria] and catching these Takfiri militants and getting their passport stamps and getting first-hand information that they were actually inside while Turkey was still hiding this.

She denies the allegations:

[The Turkish government alleges that] I am spying and that I am working with the Turkish opposition but it’s only logical that I would speak with the Turkish opposition just the same way I would speak with other parties … because that’s my job

She says she is surprised:

I have nothing to hide and I have never done anything aside [from] my job.

Oct 2014

Press TV interview

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Shim conducts what will be her final interview for Press TV. She says she has thought of approaching Turkish intelligence over the spying allegations

I am a bit worried, because…Turkey has been labeled by Reporters Without Borders as the largest prison for journalists

She says she has broken the story of ISIS fighters being smuggled over the border in trucks used for international NGOs:

We were some of the first people on the ground, if not the first people, to get that story of…militants going in through the Turkish border…I’ve got images of them in World Food Organization trucks. It was very apparent that they were militants by their beards, by the clothes they wore