dcel

Many parts of everyday life have come to a halt, but many shops are still open as well as gas stations and the bakeries. Roads are a mix of totally empty in some places and totally clogged from the extra checkpoints Asyish are putting on to deal with ISIS sleep cells that have been activated. Schools are now shutdown across the whole region.

Precious few unfortunately. A lot of NGOs have evacuated.

1. Absolutely the most important: Spread the message. I don't just mean retweeting or liking facebook posts. I mean actually speaking in person to you friends, your parents, co-workers, everyone about what is going on. People should be fucking livid even if they have no personal connection to the cause: A NATO state of 100 million people is literally using an army of former ISIS and Al-Qaeda militants to commit ethnic cleansing on the very people who defeated ISIS militarily. This isn't propaganda: Turkey's use of jihadist forces and gross human rights abuses are well documented and have been going on for years now with zero condemnation from the intl community.

2. Fight the social media fight. Look at any post on twitter, reddit or facebook about this war and you will see an army of Turkish nerds and their bots commenting, downvoting and generally stirring shit. We have an amazing campaign running called #RiseUp4Rojava as well as #WomenDefendRojava but we need all the help we can get. Sharing our content is great, but even better is contributing: if you get photos from demos or actions send them to us, if you know how to edit videos, offer your services, if you can translate, let us add you to our list of translators.

3. Organise. If you are not a member of a local solidarity group, join now. Having said that, while these groups are present in most cities in the EU, not many cities in the US have large Kurdish populations but other leftist groups are likely to be making solidarity actions.

4. Act! Whenever you can, go to a demo. Whenever there is a meeting and you can go, go. Generally these are being organised under the umbrella of #RiseUp4Rojava but there will be others too.

5. Even better is direct action, but to save myself another line on my arrest warrant when I get back I won't make any suggestions exactly what.

6. Contact your state and federal representatives, celebrities, your trade union. Ask them to use their platform to support this cause. Explain to them passionately the the international catastrophe that is happening here and how we can stop it.

7. Prepare to come to Rojava. Seriously. If you were in YPG/YPJ/IFB before, if you're a doctor, nurse or EMT, or someone with skills useful in these times (engineers, technicians, linguists, whatever), get ready. At some point there will be open call by the movement for people to flood the region like there was in the time of Kobanê. They will be preparing the legal and logistical framework to get large numbers of volunteers across from Başur (Iraqi Kurdistan) now and will make the call in the near future. [please don't contact me about this as I am not involved at all and can't help, and obviously check the laws in your state or country about this before getting me in loads of trouble...]

Not that we are aware of. Some came 4 days ago and took some ISIS members held in a prison here and within an hour of the helicopters leaving we started getting shelled, so I presume all the Americans are out.

Thanks for your solidarity heval.

The thing I always wonder about a no-fly zone is how will it be enforced? Coalition aircraft are not going to shoot down the jets of a NATO partner, so what's to stop Turkey from flying regardless?