Syria

1 June 2018News

Thousands protest British missile attack

Photo: Garry Knight (CC-BY-SA 2.0) from Flickr

On 16 April, hundreds protested in Parliament Square, London, after 100 missiles were fired at targets inside Syria two days earlier by Britain, France and the US. The three governments claimed to have proof that the Syrian government was responsible for chemical weapons attacks the previous week in Douma, on the outskirts of Damascus. Inspectors from the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons collected samples from Douma…

1 June 2018News

Wales protests British role in Syria air strikes

‘Not in Our Name!’ Ceredigion says bombing Syria is not the answer. Photo: Marian Delyth

People from across Ceredigion and beyond gathered in Aberystwyth on 16 April to protest against the UK government’s decision to bomb Syria. Organised by Stop the War Ceredigion and Aberystwyth Peace and Justice Network, the protest attracted more than 70 people.

It was part of a UK-wide series of protests organised by the Stop the War Coalition against the UK government, referring to the…

1 April 2017News

Alleged coalition civilian killings since January outstrip claims against Russia

On 24 March, Airwars, a transparency NGO monitoring civilian casualties from international airstrikes in Iraq, Syria and Libya, sent out an email warning that the escalation of US strikes was threatening to overwhelm its capacity to monitor and assess the civilian impact.

Airwars wrote: ‘Following an unprecedented number of alleged Coalition civilian casualty events and casualties in recent weeks, Airwars has taken the difficult decision to suspend detailed assessing of alleged…

1 February 2017News

March reaches Czech Republic but splits over 'revolutionary flag'

Photo: Civil March for Aleppo

As PN went to press, the Civil March for Aleppo had been walking for 28 days through the European winter in protest against the bombing of civilians in Syria. Having left Berlin, Germany, on 26 December, dozens of marchers had reached Ledec nad Sazavou in the centre of the Czech Republic. The intention is to walk for over three months, for over 2,000 miles, into Syria.

The organisers’ founding statement says: ‘We are going to Aleppo. From…

1 April 2016News

Lisa Cumming reports on the West Yorkshire Nonviolent Network's event 'How will peace be built in Syria?'

‘We’re not coming for a better life, we’re simply searching for life itself.’

I’m reminded of this simple statement as I watch the Sunday night news. BBC footage shows yet more people arriving on boats in Lesbos. The reporter tells the husband of a five-month pregnant woman from Syria that they’ve missed the deadline and might be sent back to Turkey due to the new agreement with the EU. The husband’s eyes say everything. Another man quietly asks for mercy.

Sleman…

2 December 2015Blog

Pictures from 3 demos against UK airstrikes on Syria and further information and actions you can take.

Selected info & resources

Stop the War analysis and actions

Women in Black calls on the UK government to use diplomacy, discussion, economic sanctions and strategies, NOT BOMBS on Syria. Download the leaflet and send to the Prime Minister

1 October 2015Feature

A refugee threatened with deportation tells his story

My name is Majdy Al-Kassem, from Syria, Idlib city. I’m 26-years-old. I am married and have one child. I have BA of English. I was planning to get a job as a teacher of English Language but because of war, and the suppression of the regime, obliging young men to go to the military service and killing Syrian people, I refused to kill anyone and decided to escape from Syria alone after six months of marriage, leaving my wife who was pregnant.

If I stayed in Syria and refused to kill…

25 November 2014Feature

International attention has focused recently on Kobani/Kobane, a Syrian Kurdish town on the border with Turkey, besieged by the al-Qa’eda splinter group ISIS (known to opponents by its Arabic acronym ‘Daesh’). Here a well-informed non-pacifist anarchist explains some of the background to the conflict.

Kurdish protests against siege of Kobane by ISIS in Bologna, Italy on Global day for Kobane. November 1st 2014. Photo: Petar Miloševic

The heroic resistance of the people of Kobane in fighting the onslaught of the Daesh (ISIS) fascists since mid-September, has led to a surge of international solidarity. A multitude of articles and statements have been written and protests have been held in cities across the world. Kurds have flooded across the Turkish border to help their compatriots in the…

28 September 2014Feature

Ian Sinclair looks beyond the "babbling brook of [mainstream media] bullshit" about the Iraq crisis.

CRUDIFICATION, an Iraqi Fine Artists Association in
Britain Group show in London, features the work
of Jalal Alwan (pictured), and others. www.p21.org.uk

Just over ten years since it failed the public so completely over the 2003 Iraq War, the mainstream media’s coverage of the current Iraq crisis has been predictably awful.

“Stop droning on Mr Cameron… SEND IN THE DRONES” was The Sun’s considered…

28 September 2014Review

OR Books, 2014; 150pp; £9. Purchase online here: http://www.orbooks.com/catalog/jihadis-return/

If you want a concise, thoughtful background briefing on the ISIS crisis, this is it – written by a journalist with three decades of experience in the region. This is a compelling account of how the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS) has managed to conquer an area the size of Britain. Patrick Cockburn knew something was coming: he nominated Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the head of ISIS, as the Independent’s ‘man of the year’ for the Middle East on
1 January, days before ISIS…

8 September 2014Blog

Ian Sinclair looks beyond the "babbling brook of [mainstream media] bullshit" about the Iraq crisis.

Just over ten years since it failed the public so completely over the 2003 Iraq War, the mainstream media’s coverage of the current Iraq crisis has been predictably awful.

“Stop droning on Mr Cameron… SEND IN THE DRONES” was The Sun’s considered front page on 4 September 2014. At the opposite end of the British press spectrum The Independent’s…

21 July 2014News

British activists head for Beirut

At 3pm on 12 July, British peace activists Maria Gallastegui and Simon Moore set out from Gabriel’s Wharf on London’s South Bank, in Rumi, a 16-foot-long ‘Wayfarer’ sailing boat. They are aiming to sail to Beirut, Lebanon.

In their statement, Maria and Simon said: ‘We are going to Lebanon in order to raise awareness and support for the Syrian refugee community and to call for peaceful change within Syria for a just society. We support groups and individuals who are working…

19 April 2014Blog

Covert US and British support for Syrian rebels has continued, despite overwhelming public opposition.

When the Coalition Government was defeated in parliament over military intervention in Syria last summer many activists probably thought that was the end of the matter. After all Prime Minister David Cameron had conceded ‘the British parliament, reflecting the views of the British people, does not want to see British military action. I get that and the Government will act accordingly.’

What many people don’t realise is the UK…

1 April 2014Feature

Working towards a viable future for Syria when fighting ends

‘Right now, people who are involved in nonviolent activism in Syria are mainly having to do two things: relief work, to deal with the catastrophic levels of humanitarian disaster and then underground civil resistance, like newspapers, news agencies, schools, hospitals and clinics,’ Mohja Kahf told Peace News in March.

Kahf, a member of the Syrian Nonviolence Movement (SNVM), was born in Syria but grew up in the United States, where she is now an associate professor of Comparative…

1 November 2013Letter

I see from your masthead that PN has adopted the glib slogan that the Stop the War Coalition popped up with this summer.

‘Hands off Syria’ was all very well in the face of US air-strikes. But where has the coalition been for the past two-and-a-half years?

Instead of tacitly siding with Assad as his repression of a once peaceful uprising grew increasingly bloody, why have they never directed their slogan at this murderous butcher of his own population? I call it…