Tues 7/28: Chicago Solidarity with Rojava after Suruç Massac

Chicago Solidarity with Rojava after Suruç Massacre

     ****  Picket/Press conference:
     ****  Tuesday, July 28, 2015, 7:00PM
     ****  Tribune Tower, 435 N. Michigan Ave, Chicago



                               Local Turkish and Kurdish residents, supporters of Rojava Movement
                         to remember the lives of unarmed activists massacred by ISIS and to protest
                        the negligence and active encouragement of violence by the Turkish government.

CHICAGO 7/28 -- Supporters of the Rojava movement are staging solidarity protests around the world in response to the July 20th barbaric attack on unarmed Kobani reconstruction volunteers by ISIS. Tuesday, July 28, local Chicago Kurdish and Turkish residents and local supporters of Rojava will gather to remember the lives lost to barbaric violence and to protest the negligence and active encouragement of violence by the Turkish government. The action is being held in front of Tribune Tower and will move to the Turkish Consulate at 455 N. Cityfront Plaza on the Near North Side.

On July 20th, people around the world were shocked to hear that 32 young activists had been killed in an attack by the group ISIS in Suruc, Turkey. The activists, socialists and anarchists, students and teenagers from Turkey, were on a trip to help with the reconstruction of Kobani, a city ruined during battle with ISIS. The trip was organized by The Socialist Youth Association Federation and they had planned activities such as rebuilding a museum, planting trees for a memorial, and bringing books and toys to the children of Kobani. These people were inspired by the leftist revolution taking place in Rojava, the Kurdish autonomous region of Syria. The Rojava movement has sought to establish a highly progressive society instituting such changes as 50% leadership of women in a highly patriarchal region, abolishing central government, and making workplaces owned by the worker.

But the vision of Rojava is actively opposed by the Turkish government, as it has opposed most movements of the Kurds and other associated people in their long history of Kurdish oppression. The Turkish government has continually supported ISIS through such actions as having an embargo at the border of Turkey and Syria while Kobani was in battle and sending trucks of weapons to ISIS territories. Turkish intelligence may even have been aware of the coming attack and Turkish riot police acted more swiftly to harass the victims than the ambulances arriving to claim the dead and save the wounded.

Come and join us to remember the lives of these brave young men and women in solidarity with the Kurdish people and to protest this vicious attack on unarmed people allowed by the negligence and active encouragement of the Turkish government. Let’s call on the world to hold the Turkish government accountable for its role in supporting ISIS and the oppression of the Kurdish people!

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Further Reading:

Statement on the Recent Massacre in Suruc, Turkey
BLACK ROSE ANARCHIST FEDERATION / FEDERACION ANARQUISTA ROSA NEGRA (USA)
http://www.blackrosefed.org/statement-on-bombing-turkey-suruc/

Suruc massacre: 'Turkish student' was suicide bomber
BBC News: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-33619043

For Turkey, radical Kurdish rebels are the same as ISIS
Actually, not so simple. In Syria, Ankara’s air force is attacking
the Islamic State, while in Iraq, Turkey is operating against the Kurds.
Haaretz: http://www.haaretz.com/news/middle-east/1.667912