After the devastating earthquakes on 6 February, which affected mostly Kurdish-populated areas in both Turkey and Syria, solidarity events in European cities are taking place for earthquake victims as the death toll continues to increase.
Seventeen anarchist organisations from Italy, Germany, New Zealand, Catalonia, Spain, Switzerland, Colombia, Turkey, Brazil, North Korea, Rojava and France released a joint statement calling for solidarity with the survivors of the devastating earthquakes that affected Turkey’s southern provinces and Syria’s north on 6 February.
“Humanitarian aid is confiscated and redistributed by the AKP and its Islamo-fascist offices. Fascists and their counterparts in the civil police threaten to ‘disappear’ ordinary people working around the clock to feed and provide aid to those displaced by the earthquakes. Clearly, the state and its supporters are more concerned with maintaining the capitalist system than saving the lives of tens of thousands. This is why they disrupt and delay grassroots solidarity and mutual aid,” said the anarchist organisations in their statement.
A group of Swiss and Kurdish children collected donations at their school in the canton of St. Gallen for the victims of the two earthquakes. The children said they would donate the money they’ve collected to the Kurdish Red Crescent.
In the city of Cologne in Germany, the Solidarity Network set up a tent on Friday to collect donations and show solidarity with the earthquake victims. A group made verbal threats and then physically attacked the activists in the tent, however, people nearby protested against the group until they left. The solidarity tent continued with stronger participation.
The aid campaign initiated by the Kurdish Cultural Centre continues in Greece’s capital.
The movie Kobanê was screened in the Cinema Studio Art Hall in Athens as an earthquake solidarity event with the participation of several institutions. The activists called on the audience to support the Kurdistan Red Crescent Society’s aid campaign.
Women from the Mesopotamian Movement for Democratic Culture and Art (TEV-ÇAND) called on all artists, intellectuals and politicians to join the aid campaign launched by the Kurdistan Red Crescent Society (Heyva Sor a Kurdistanê) for the earthquake victims, saying “It is the state that kills, not the earthquake.”
