Skip Nav | Home | Mobile | Editorial Guidelines | Mission Statement | About Us | Contact | Help | Security | Support Us

World

International Solidarity Hunger Strike for Syria

Solidarity | 30.12.2013 19:32 | Anti-militarism | Repression | Social Struggles | World

MOADAMIYA, SYRIA, December 29, 2013: The Food Justice Baton Is Passed to the World by the Hunger Striker of Syria, and We Shall Uphold It

On December 28, Qusai Zakarya decided to end a 33 day hunger strike that was begun on November 26, a nonviolent action to demand that the Assad regime’s armed siege on the Syrian town of Moadamiya be lifted, and that humanitarian agencies be allowed to bring food and medicine to the dozens of besieged towns in Syria.

An International Solidarity Hunger Strike launched on December 20, to support these goals. Leading intellectuals, human rights figures and activists from around the world joined the strike. Qusai ended his strike for health issues. With this, he passes the baton to the International Solidarity Hunger Strike. “Access to food for the populations of dozens of Syrian towns that are still besieged and still starving, remains critical,” Qusai says.

In the past week, philosophy luminaries Jurgen Habermas, Seyla Benhabib, Slavoj Zizek, and Hilary Putnam; Bahraini human rights activist Maryam al-Khawaja; Syrian media activists Razan Ghazzawi and Raed Fares, poets Marilyn Hacker and Martin Espada and Syria’s Khawla Dunia, have signed on to the Strike.

Our ranks expanded with prominent American public figures such as Bill Fletcher Jr., Naom Chomsky, Rabbi Lynn Gottlieb, Norman Finkelstein, Simon Critchley, and Congressman Keith Ellison. Solidarity hunger strikers include Andrei Codrescu of Romanian origin, as well as Omid Safi, Nader Hashemi, and Leila Zand, who are of Iranian origin, and novelists Robin Yassin-Kassab and Mohja Kahf, who are of Syrian origin. Syrian schoolteacher and protester Soad Nofal, Syrian writer Yassin al-Haj Saleh, and Syrian doctor Mazen Halabi, along with many other Syrians, joined. The response of Huwaids Arraf, Palestinian American co-founder of the pro-Palestinian International Solidarity Movement when she was invited to join the International Solidarity Hunger Strike for Syria was, “Yes, without hesitation.”

The International Solidarity Hunger Strike is still growing and will continue until January 22, when the Geneva Conference on Syria convenes.

The team working on Qusai’s Facebook page, including Rasha Othman, Bayan Khatib, and Mohja Kahf, who are Syrian activists in North America, deeply appreciate Qusai’s personal commitment to bringing international focus on the food blockade affecting one and a half million Syrians. “Qusai is a valuable spokesperson for Moadamiya citizens, and for the Syrian revolution for freedom, human rights, and democracy,” says Terry Burke of the Minnesota-based Friends for a NonViolent World, who is also part of the team. She adds, “We are grateful that Qusai ended the strike before suffering permanent damage to his health.”

Despite the recent submission of the Local Council of Moadamiya to humiliating conditions imposed by the Assad regime in exchange for regime promises of allowing food into the town, to date only a small amount of food has been allowed in by the regime: one truck with canned food inadequate even for one meal for the 8,000 civilians in Moadamiya. Local civilians, including Qusai, believe this is a cruel regime ploy to keep the town dependent on arbitrary regime conditions.

The Assad regime is still violating international law and still using food as a weapon of war not only in Moadamiya but in dozens of other Syrian towns that remain under starvation siege. International humanitarian agencies have not yet been allowed unfettered access to Moadamiya to distribute food and medicine, as required by the non-binding Statement of the United Nations’ Security Council last September. We still need a binding UN resolution on this, and it must happen before the Geneva Conference convenes.

Qusai’s act of civil resistance was bravely forged amid surrounding conditions of violence. His nonviolent action motivated many people around the world to join in solidarity with besieged and starving Syrian civilians. This solidarity is even more urgently needed as Qusai now passes the baton to all of us. Email  stopthesiege@gmail.com to join the International Solidarity Hunger Strike, and please sign the petition to support its goal of allowing food and medicine to be brought in to starving Syrians:

Please follow Qusai’s continuing updates from Moadamiya, Syria, at:
 http://stopthesiege.wordpress.com/

Like the Facebook page for Solidarity with Qusai’s Hunger Strike::
 https://www.facebook.com/qusaihungerstrike

Contact Terry Burke 952-926-0198 312-399-0454 (cell)

Rasha Othman
rashaothman26 [at] gmail.com
301-204-0382

Bayan Khatib
bayan.khatib [at] gmail.com
416-520-4509

Mohja Kahf damascenequeen [at] gmail.com

Solidarity

Publish

Publish your news

Do you need help with publishing?

/regional publish include --> /regional search include -->

World Topics

Afghanistan
Analysis
Animal Liberation
Anti-Nuclear
Anti-militarism
Anti-racism
Bio-technology
Climate Chaos
Culture
Ecology
Education
Energy Crisis
Fracking
Free Spaces
Gender
Globalisation
Health
History
Indymedia
Iraq
Migration
Ocean Defence
Other Press
Palestine
Policing
Public sector cuts
Repression
Social Struggles
Technology
Terror War
Workers' Movements
Zapatista

Kollektives

Birmingham
Cambridge
Liverpool
London
Oxford
Sheffield
South Coast
Wales
World

Other UK IMCs
Bristol/South West
London
Northern Indymedia
Scotland

Server Appeal Radio Page Video Page Indymedia Cinema Offline Newsheet

secure Encrypted Page

You are viewing this page using an encrypted connection. If you bookmark this page or send its address in an email you might want to use the un-encrypted address of this page.

If you recieved a warning about an untrusted root certificate please install the CAcert root certificate, for more information see the security page.

IMCs


www.indymedia.org

Projects
print
radio
satellite tv
video

Africa

Europe
antwerpen
armenia
athens
austria
barcelona
belarus
belgium
belgrade
brussels
bulgaria
calabria
croatia
cyprus
emilia-romagna
estrecho / madiaq
galiza
germany
grenoble
hungary
ireland
istanbul
italy
la plana
liege
liguria
lille
linksunten
lombardia
madrid
malta
marseille
nantes
napoli
netherlands
northern england
nottingham imc
paris/île-de-france
patras
piemonte
poland
portugal
roma
romania
russia
sardegna
scotland
sverige
switzerland
torun
toscana
ukraine
united kingdom
valencia

Latin America
argentina
bolivia
chiapas
chile
chile sur
cmi brasil
cmi sucre
colombia
ecuador
mexico
peru
puerto rico
qollasuyu
rosario
santiago
tijuana
uruguay
valparaiso
venezuela

Oceania
aotearoa
brisbane
burma
darwin
jakarta
manila
melbourne
perth
qc
sydney

South Asia
india


United States
arizona
arkansas
asheville
atlanta
Austin
binghamton
boston
buffalo
chicago
cleveland
colorado
columbus
dc
hawaii
houston
hudson mohawk
kansas city
la
madison
maine
miami
michigan
milwaukee
minneapolis/st. paul
new hampshire
new jersey
new mexico
new orleans
north carolina
north texas
nyc
oklahoma
philadelphia
pittsburgh
portland
richmond
rochester
rogue valley
saint louis
san diego
san francisco
san francisco bay area
santa barbara
santa cruz, ca
sarasota
seattle
tampa bay
united states
urbana-champaign
vermont
western mass
worcester

West Asia
Armenia
Beirut
Israel
Palestine

Topics
biotech

Process
fbi/legal updates
mailing lists
process & imc docs
tech