Syria

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…

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…

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…

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…

‘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…

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

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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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

‘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…

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…