Stop Starvation in Syria | End the Blockades
Call to Join the International Hunger Strike
Syrians are slowly dying of malnutrition – but not for lack of food. A military blockade surrounds dozens of Syrian towns. This starvation siege prevents 1.5 million Syrians from receiving food or medicine.
Qusai Zakarya is one of them. He is 28 years old. Qusai declared a hunger strike on November 26, to demand food and medicine be allowed to reach civilians across military lines in Syria. “We are all hungry here in my hometown anyway. Let me be hungry for a purpose,” Qusai says.
We are starting the first phase of a “rolling” solidarity hunger strike onFriday, December 20, where someone will do a hunger strike every day in support of the hunger strikers in Syria through the rest of December.
We are also working on putting together a list of supporters for launching a larger campaign leading up to the Geneva Conference in January. We are asking that you commit to one day of a symbolic hunger strike and that you give us permission to put your name on the materials to publicize the hunger strikes more widely. We also ask, if you are able, to send in a photo of yourself or group to stopthesiege@gmail.com, maybe with a sign illustrating your participation.
Our goals:
- To call for food and medicine now to all besieged towns in Syria.
- To call for a binding resolution from the UN Security Council requiring the regime in Syria and all armed parties to allow humanitarian organizations immediate unfettered access to aid the civilian population without discrimination, including cross-border access and cross-line access (from regime-controlled areas into rebel-controlled areas).
- To alert media and political representatives to this situation.
- To support this act of civil resistance in Syria.
Can you join us this holiday season in standing in solidarity with Syrians? People of conscience everywhere must act to break the siege that is affecting over a million people.
In Solidarity and Hope,
- Gilbert Achcar, Professor, SOAS, University of London
- Noam Chomsky, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
- Simon Critchley, Professor of Philosophy, The New School (New York)
- Jürgen Habermas, German philosopher
- Adam Shatz, Senior Editor, London Review of Books
- Keith Ellison, U.S. Representative for Minnesota’s 5th Congressional District
- Razan Ghazzawi, Syrian blogger-activist & former political prisoner
- Rola Hallam, Syrian Doctor and Humanitarian Worker
- Norman Finkelstein, political scientist, professor, and author, US
- Bill Fletcher Jr, Writer/Activist
- Slavoj Žižek, University of Ljubljana (Slovenia)
- Rev. Kristin Stoneking, Executive Director, Fellowship of Reconciliation
- Gail Daneker, Friends for a Nonviolent World, Director of Peace Education Advocacy
- Huwaida Arraf, Palestinian American co-founder of International Solidarity Movement
- Medea Benjamin, Code Pink
- Yassin al-Haj Saleh, Syrian writer & former political prisoner
- Molly Crabapple, Artist and Writer
- Paul Woodward, editor at War in Context
- Mona Eltahawy, Egyptian feminist writer
- Rabbi Lynn Gottlieb, Co-Founder of Shomer Shalom Network of Jewish Nonviolence
- Jawdat Said, Syrian nonviolence teacher for over fifty years
- Marilyn Hacker, American Poet
- Mina Hamilton, American Writer
- Rime Allaf, Syrian writer
- Muhammad Idrees Ahmad, Lecturer, University for the Creative Arts
- Michael Nagler, Metta Center for Nonviolence
- Seyla Benhabib, Eugene Meyer Professor of Political Science and Philosophy, Yale University
- Stephen Zunes, Professor of Politics and International Studies, University of San Francisco
- Suad Mohamed, University of Virginia
- Danny Postel, University of Denver
- Bob Nechal, Friends for a Nonviolent World
- Nader Hashemi, University of Denver
- Michael Hanna, Century Foundation
- Raed Fares, Media Office Director for the Town of Kafr Nbel, Syria
- Afra Jalabi, Syrian Nonviolence Movement
- Mohja Kahf, Syrian American poet & academic
- Andrei Codrescu, Poet, Novelist, Founder & Editor of Exquisite Corpse: A Journal of Books & Ideas
- Martín Espada, Poet/Essayist, University of Massachusetts-Amherst
- Ruth Lorio, writer/screenwriter
- Mitchell Plitnick, Souciant (formerly Jewish Voices for Peace and B’tselem)
- Linda Thomson, Minnesota Peace Project
- Ian Keith, St Paul Elementary School Teacher
- Wael Khouli, Physician and Human Rights Activist
- Mazen Halabi, Community Activist
- Cathy Murphy, Peace Activist
- Andy Berman, Veterans for Peace
- Terry Burke, Friends for a Nonviolent World
- Nicole Halabi, School Administrator
- Wendy Tuck, Educator
- Robin Yassin-Kassab, novelist, journalist, and editor
- Ariane Brunet, Co-founder of the Urgent Action Fund for Women’s Rights
- Marvin X, Black Arts Movement poet, activist
- Budour Hassan, Palestinian anarchist activist
- Taysir Alkarim, Syrian revolution field doctor, former prisoner of conscience, Syrian Nonviolence
(organizations listed for identification only)
Join us! Please sign up by sending your information to stopthesiege@gmail.com
Name:
Affiliation:
Country:
E-mail:
Date you will participate in hunger strike (December 2- through January 22):
FOOD IS NOT A WEAPON!
source: http://pulsemedia.org/2013/12/19/stop-starvation-in-syria-end-the-blockades/