Syria’s civil war has created new opportunities for the long repressed Syrian Kurds to become more autonomous from Damascus. The war has created new forms of Kurdish governance in Syria and prompted the rise of Kurdish news websites, Facebook groups, newspapers, radio stations and TV stations.

Before the civil war in Syria, Kurdish media couldn’t operate in Syria. Mohammed Kemal, the head of the Free Media Union, an association established after the unrest in June 2012, told Al-Monitor in Qamishli that the first Kurdish TV stations — such as MED TV, Roj TV and Kurdistan TV — faced difficulties in operating.

“We didn’t have any reporters who could report the news or any programs, because the organizations would be accused of being a terrorist organization by the regime of Syria,” he said. As a result, Kurdish journalists operated secretly, at the risk of being exposed, arrested and tortured by Syrian authorities.

Berfin Yildiz, who has her own program on the newly established Kurdish Ronahi TV, told Al-Monitor, “People were afraid to make programs before.” Therefore, when Syrian Kurds rose up against the Syrian government in Qamishli in March 2004, there were almost no on-the-ground reports from Syria.