Friday 6 May 2016

Aleppo Is Burning



 'Last Friday, in an attempt to show solidarity with Aleppo, massive numbers of people changed their Facebook profile pictures to a red box. Now, a week later, we have seen protests in Argentina, Poland, Belgium, the United States, Turkey, Germany, Lebanon, Italy, Sweden, France, Canada, Jordan, Norway, Greece, the United Kingdom, Netherlands, Hungary, Spain, Indonesia, Egypt, and Palestinian Occupied Territories.

 
This campaign is beautiful, but it is not enough. Every day, people’s houses, schools, mosques and markets get bombed. Civil defense members try and save them. Then civil defense members get bombed. Hospital staff members try and save them. Then hospitals get bombed. So people leave for refugee camps. Their camps get bombed. 

 Negotiating refugee borders and fighting ISIS is not what Syria needs to end the war. What Syria needs right now — what Syrians need — is a ceasefire that ensures Assad stops killing his own people. The bombing has to stop so Syrians can rebuild hospitals, buy groceries, go to schools. The bombing has to stop so people in Aleppo do not live as though every second is their last. 

 Assad is killing his people. Syrians have been saying this over and over and over again for five years now, and yet Assad is still committing massacres, bombing and torturing and killing. And now, Assad is burning Aleppo. 

 So what do we do? We organize protests. We go out. We yell, chant, demand justice. Because Syrians are being killed for doing the same. Syrians are waiting for the international community to do something, but we have had enough of the inaction. We launched this movement to show the world that someone is watching, to reject the international community’s indifference. And we call on you to join us, wherever you are. Because the world has been deaf for five years. And we need as many voices as possible for it to start listening.'

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