No Peace Without Justice, Kirkayak Sanat Merkezi and the Nonviolent Radical Party, Transnational and Transparty commemorate this 15 March together with the people of Syria, hoping that this year will be the last year Syria will continue to suffer the repression and violence of previous years.
The conflict that has engulfed the country these past three years has left no home untouched, no person unscathed and a population that cannot see an end in sight. Every day, children, women and men in Syria are living through unspeakable horror. Nearly half the population have been forced to flee their homes in fear. Over 100,000 people have been killed.
15 March 2014 marks the third anniversary of the Syria crisis, three years of failure by the world to end the appalling suffering. 15 March 2014 marks the third anniversary since the call went up from the people of Syria for greater political and economic freedom and greater respect for their basic human rights. Instead of this call being met with reform, it was met with brute force and oppression; ordinary people were killed in the streets by their own government.
Despite the brutality that has been meted out to the Syrian people, they have not waived in their demand for freedom and democracy. It is the international community that has waived in its obligation to protect the people of Syria – to prevent the imprisonment, torture, rape and killing that has occurred with regularity these past three years. It is the international community that has failed the people of Syria and particularly the children of Syria, who are dying through lack of basic medical treatment, their education interrupted and their homes destroyed. The international community needs to do better in 2014, so next year this day can be a day of celebration rather than mournful reflection.
This year, we ask everyone to stand #withSyria and ask your government and the decision-makers in your community to do whatever they can to help stop the suffering. No Peace Without Justice, the Nonviolent Radical Party, Transnational and Transparty and Kirkayak Sanat Merkezi are commemorating this third anniversary of the revolution by recalling the original values of the Syrian people with an exhibition of art works made by Syrian refugees displaced in Turkey.
We take this opportunity to stand with our Syrian colleagues to underline how this revolution started and the basic principles underpinning it, principles shared in common with people the world over. We take this opportunity to pay tribute to the people of Syria who despite these three years of violence that have all but destroyed a country, refuse to allow it to destroy themselves, their values and their hopes for a better future. We take this opportunity to ask that we all work together to make 2014 the year that sees an end to the suffering of the Syrian people and allows them to start rebuilding their future, on the basis of justice, equality and human rights for all.
In that context, No Peace Without Justice, the Nonviolent Radical Party, Transnational and Transparty and the Syrian Women’s Network join the #withSyria vigil campaign promoted by a coalition of organisations from around the world. In Gaziantep, just a few kilometres from the Syrian border, we are coming together as part of the worldwide candlelit vigil to shine a light in solidarity with the people of Syria. We stand together to show every child, woman and man caught up in the conflict that we are with them, that we are #withSyria. We stand together, after three years of violence, to show the world’s leaders that we will not give up on the people of Syria and that they must not only act to bring an end to the bloodshed, they must ensure aid reaches those who need it.
For further information, contact Hadi Al-Khateeb on hadi@npwj.org or Nicola Giovannini on ngiovannini@npwj.org or +32-2-548-3915.
