Their only crime was to disseminate information and spread the truth about the bloody crackdown that is still in progress against the Syrian people. Their main weapons are mobile phones and the Internet.

To pay tribute to the unprecedented number of citizen journalists who have lost their lives to send out pictures of the uprising, Reporters Without Borders and its advertising agency JWT Paris, through a unique live Tweet, are bringing to life the experiences of people who find ways of circulating information in the midst of danger.

The campaign image shows a lifeless hand covered in earth and blood. Next to it, there is a smart phone with a QR code on its illuminated screen. When it is scanned, a Twitter-style application starts up, taking the user into the live tweet of an imaginary citizen journalist in the midst of the conflict in Homs. The application shows his final minutes in detail through his feed. Events gradually take an unexpected turn until the final outcome.

Known as #DeadTweet, the press and poster campaign uses the QR code to raise awareness about citizens’ efforts to cover conflicts in countries where authoritarian governments impose a media blackout by trying to keep out foreign journalists. When journalists can no longer do their job, these citizens are an essential information link and play their part in informing the world, sometimes paying the price with their lives.

At the end of the experience, a short awareness-raising message appears and the user can share it on social networks and help spread the message to as many people as possible.

“I call on the Syrian authorities to fully investigate the circumstances of their deaths,” the Director-General of the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), Irina Bokova, said in a news release, in which she also condemned the killings, adding that the five lost their lives while trying to inform the Syrian people of the tragic events taking place in their country.

The deaths in late May of Ammar Mohamed Zado, Ahmed Adnan Al-Ashlaq, Lawrence Fahmy Al-Naimi – all of whom worked for the Shaam News Network – and Bassel Al Shahade and Ahmed Al Assam, bring to 11 the number of citizen journalists killed in Syria since February.

They are among the more than 10,000 people, mostly civilians, who have been killed in Syria since the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad began some 16 months ago.

“I also call on all parties involved in the present conflict to take all necessary steps to improve safety for all media workers in Syria, who are not only defending the right of the Syrian people to information and press freedom, but are also exercising their own right to freedom of expression, which is vital for all societies,” Ms. Bokova added.

According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, a non-governmental organization, Ammar Mohamed Zado, Ahmed Adnan Al-Ashlaq and Lawrence Fahmy Al-Naimi were killed in the capital, Damascus, on 27 May, when the apartment they were staying in was shelled.

The organization added that Bassel Al Shahade, who was working on a documentary film, and cameraman Ahmed Al Assam were killed on 28 May while filming an assault by armed forces in the Safsafa district of Homs.