Syria’s Information Ministry and the journalists' union held a conference in the Syrian capital, Damascus in the attendance of families of the slain journalists.

“There has been a lot of stereotyping and a lot of mixed understanding about Syria,” said Reem Haddad, an advisor to Syria’s information minister, adding that those journalists who died tried to “communicate a message of what is really happening in Syria.”

“Those people died trying to fight that terrible trend of actually giving completely wrong information to the outside world,” she noted.

Dozens of journalists, including Press TV correspondent Maya Naser, have been killed in Syria since the crisis erupted in the Arab country more than three years ago.

In mid-April, three journalists who worked for Lebanon’s al-Manar television, lost their lives in a shooting attack by the foreign-backed militants operating in Syria’s Christian town of Ma’loula.

On March 8, Omar Abdel Qader, a cameraman who worked for Beirut-based al-Mayadeen television channel, was killed in the eastern city of Deir Ezzor.

The US-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has described Syria as the most dangerous country in the world for journalists, blaming al-Qaeda-linked militants for kidnappings and murders of journalists, even in neighboring Iraq.

According to Reporters Without Borders (RSF), over 130 news providers were killed in Syria between March 2011 to December 2013.

Syria has been gripped by deadly violence since March 2011. Reports say more than 150,000 people have so far been killed and millions displaced in the violence.

BA/BA