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.