[Andrew Mandelbaum]

Another appeal for some sense that anyone in the America State actually gives a damn about the real freedom fighters who pushed ISIS back and are now surrounded by Edrogan's thugs:


You may be aware that one of the most radical feminist revolutions has been happening in Rojava, north Syria through the Kurdish Women's Protection Units (YPJ) and their fellow male units YPG who are currently under direct threat and bombardment by the Turkish regime and its allied jihadists and recycled ISIS fighters.

There are fierce clashes occurring right now in Afrin. Erdogan’s jihadists and mercenaries are 2kms away from Afrin city. This is a terrifying development as 900,000 civilians and internally displaced people are now trapped in the city with no way out!!! For weeks we have seen how the invading Turkish “army” who are clearly former ISIS soldiers - recycled into terrorizing Kurds and exacting revenge on the SDF-YPG_YPJ for their historical and humiliating defeats since Kobane’s liberation - have been killing, burning, massacring, torturing civilians. At every step the Turkish backed jihadists and their political backers in Ankara have called for the “cleansing” of Afrin of Kurds and returning the “original” inhabitants. This week the Syrian Army was demanding anywhere from $1200-2000 from civilians in Afrin wishing safe passage out of the canton, an extortion that is double the yearly salary of an average person. There is literally no way out for the civilians surrounded to the north by an EU supplied massive 3m high cement wall and jihadists, Turkish military, Syrian military and ISIS on the eastern, western and southern fronts-all the while being bombed from the sky which are happening right now. The city also has very little water left and convoys of supporters are stuck in the city swelling the population numbers.

Thousands of SDF-YPG-YPJ fighters are fighting fiercely to save the city and the civilians but Erdogan has not hesitated to bombard the city and civilian areas- and in fact has done so deliberately as an act of clear terrorism- and the bombardments will/are continuing! Ground forces can only do so much to defend a besieged city under constant, unrelenting bombardment!

I cannot over emphasize the urgency of the situation!

Flood your MPs and Senators office with phone calls. Gather for urgent protests. Show up on the front of parliaments, embassies and UN headquarters. Blockade. Flood the streets with flyers. Call human rights activists and ask them to speak up. Mass contact and flood the social media accounts of human rights organizations. Call your media offices and demand they cover the invasion and the humanitarian crisis urgently.

We are responsible for our silence, and our silence has real life consequences. Don’t let an ethnic cleansing happen for the love of all that is human and still sacred in all of us. If you don’t speak now when will you?

#DefendAfrin #Afrin #YourSilenceIsKillingKurds