The Assad regime is slaughtering its citizens and tearing cities apart. The UN has failed to stop the killing, and Avaaz has the only network that is both smuggling medical equipment and journalists in and images and information out. Click to watch this video appeal from Danny, a brave Syrian democracy activist calling on Avaaz for help, and chip in now to save lives:
https://secure.avaaz.org/en/smuggle_hope_into_syria_rb_en/?cl=1579380904...
Wow, more than 31,000 of us have donated and we're already getting aid and equipment into Syria - let's hit our target of 35,000!
This urgent video appeal just came in from one of Avaaz's brave citizen journalists in Syria -- our community may be the only one that can help Danny and his friends before the next massacre.
Right now, the regime is murdering men, women and children and tearing cities apart. China and Russia just handcuffed international action at the UN and gave Assad license to unleash his murder machine to crush the Syrian Spring once and for all. But Danny and the democracy movement are more determined than ever and are urgently asking for our continued international solidarity and support.
Let’s be clear -- as embassies close, medical agencies withdraw and journalists pull out, Avaaz has the only network that is both smuggling medical equipment and journalists in and images and information out. The UN has failed, but we can help peaceful democracy heroes like Danny loosen the dictator's grip on their country. Click here to see Danny's appeal and chip in now so we can continue our Arab spring campaigning and support for citizen journalists -- if 35,000 of us donate now, we can get aid to the most besieged cities and towns before the next attack:
https://secure.avaaz.org/en/smuggle_hope_into_syria_rb_en/?vl
Activists like Danny are risking their lives for freedom and counting on our global support. On Saturday, Syria’s brutal forces killed another one of Avaaz's citizen journalists, a 23-year-old named Omar, a leader of our 400-strong network of activists, as he pulled people from the rubble after a deadly massacre in Homs. Omar died as he lived, photographing the regime’s crimes, helping others and sacrificing for freedom. After the regime kicked the international media out, brave civilians like Danny and Omar have risked their lives to break the news blackout and help 18 of the world’s leading journalists from foreign news outlets into the locked-down country. It’s likely that the images you have seen on your TV or photographs in your newspaper came from this courageous team.
But that is just a part of what the Avaaz project has done. Thanks to the generous support of members across the world, Avaaz is providing a rare lifeline of critical support to the democracy movement in Syria. When activists told us medicines were running out, we set up a smuggling network to deliver over $1.8 million worth of medical equipment into the country, saving thousands of lives. When the Syrian National Council was struggling to present a credible leadership alternative to the world, we organized meetings in the UN, Russia and across Europe to support their work.
Day after day, Danny and Omar and hundreds of other heroes have turned out to film and protest, facing down tanks with no support from international governments. But what happens in the next two weeks will be decisive. This is the pinnacle of the Arab Spring and the global struggle against brutal despots. Together we can secure a lifeblood to the resistance and walk with the brave Syrian people on their journey to freedom. Click to watch Danny's desperate appeal and make a life-saving donation now:
https://secure.avaaz.org/en/smuggle_hope_into_syria_rb_en/?vl
This year people power in the Middle East has taught the world an important lesson -- together we are stronger than the fiercest dictator, and fiercer than the most ruthless army. On the streets of Syria, Avaaz is a beloved partner in the struggle for freedom. As one opposition leader put it, “the Syrian people have gained strength from knowing that the world, through the Avaaz community, stands with them.” Together, we have made the impossible possible and with our help Assad’s regime will come to end.
With hope and determination,
Alice, Ian, Antonia, Emma, Ricken, Mouhamad, Morgan, Wissam, Sam, Bissan, Will and the entire Avaaz team
More information:
A Doctor’s Cry for Help as Homs Victims Pour In to a Medical Center [Warning: This is a graphic video not suitable for sensitive viewers]
http://www.overstream.net/view.php?oid=r3tmevemrqn0
At Least 200 Reported Killed in Syrian City of Homs (Washington Post)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/protesters-turn-out-across-syria-but...
Homs: Bloody Winter in Syria’s Revolution Capital (CNN)
http://www.cnn.com/2011/12/16/world/meast/syria-homs-profile/index.html
Anger After Russia, China Block UN Action on Syria (Reuters)
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/02/05/us-syria-idUSTRE80S08620120205...
Syria Crackdown: Homs Bombarded, Dozens Killed (Huffington Post/Reuters)
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/02/06/syria-crackdown-homs_n_1256699....
Comments
What kind of "international action"?
AVAAZ states "China and Russia just handcuffed international action at the UN and gave Assad license to unleash his murder machine to crush the Syrian Spring once and for all.". What kind of international actions is AVAAZ calling for though. One can only assume it wants yet another military intervention by the U.S., NATO and their Arab proxies.
Will it just like the recent "liberation of Libya" which saw NATO bombing and killing thousands and we now see the TNC torturing and killing their political opponents just like Gaddaffi.
Will the Syrians be lucky enough to be "liberated" like the Afghans who are now in their 11th year of foreign occupation. Perhaps they will be "liberated" like the Iraqi's from Saddam which only cost 1 million Iraqi lives.
Will Syria be liberated by the Arab League which includes such defenders of democracy like Saudi Arabia and the other Sunni monarchies?
Will the desire to protect the Arab Spring see the U.S. cut off its billions in aid to the military junta in Egypt.
For crying out loud - the calls by rights groups like AVAAZ for "international action" is naive at best and war mongering at worst. If you want to read what is really behind calls for intervention in Syria then read the World Socialist Website for excellent analysis. It explains that it is great power rivalry and the desire for the U.S. to finally achieve complete control of the Middle East at the expense of Russia and China that is the real reason for their interests. First they will depose Assad and then move on to the real prize - Iran, risking regional and even global war in the process. If you believe that the U.S. and the West cares about the loss of lives of Syrian civilians, then ask yourself why these same countries are killing civilians with drones and other military actions in Afghanistan and Pakistan daily.
Do yourself a favour and read Syria and the seeds of world war from the World Socialist Web.
The killing of civilians in Syria is a tragedy but the intervention by the U.S. or its allies would be much worse as it is part of the slide of the whole region into a potentially horrific inferno of conflict. Don't just fall for the propaganda campaign calling for war in Syria and Iran.
It feels like everything is happening exponentially
Dear Amazing Avaazers,
It feels like everything is happening exponentially.
In the last 30 days, our community has grown by 2.5 million people. We were already the largest political web movement ever, and yet we're growing faster than anyone has seen before! We're taking more actions, winning more victories, donating more and generating thousands more media hits in one month than we used to in a year. It's thrilling, even a little scary, especially when we see that the pace is still accelerating...
Just to give a snapshot of the last few weeks --
5 million of us stood up to the ACTA and SOPA internet censorship bills, helping to put SOPA on ice, and putting ACTA under threat, with the President of the European Parliament and Germany, Poland and many other countries reconsidering their positions.
we smuggled $1.8 million worth of medical supplies into Syria when no one else could, and raised $1.5 million more in donations, while our citizen journalists provided much of the world media's information and images.
we generated thousands of news articles on 20 different campaigns.
our sex trafficking hotline generated information that will result in a major set of arrests this week (can't say which country yet).
we raised over 4 million dollars/euros/yen online to supercharge our work, and are growing our staff team like mad to keep up with the need.
we ran over 40 campaigns, took over 10 million actions and told 25 million friends about campaigns we care about, on everything from deforestation in Brazil to the Murdoch scandal in the UK -- and made a serious impact on many of these.
If all that wasn't enough, we're about to launch a couple of big projects (stay tuned) that will take our community to a whole NEW level!
It's a thrilling privilege to serve this amazing community, and while the challenges we face are growing, the surge of spirited people rising to meet these challenges is growing even faster and stronger. We've come together and built something special, and it's taking off. Let's shoot for the stars.
With hope and excitement,
Ricken, Stephanie, Wen, Emma, Wissam, Veronique, Heather and the entire Avaaz team
PS - here's some recent features on our community in the Economist,
Times and Guardian. And here's a radio piece by NPR on our work in Syria, and an LA Times article on our Internet freedom campaign.
Re: Smuggle hope into Syria - Amazing response!
Have to agree with Flowerpower here.. I have seen that Avaaz are again the "darlings" of another campaign. Syria this time.
Libya will remain on my concience as I signed a "no fly zone" which actually was a big campaign with Avaaz.
Many of my friends signed too, moved by Avaaz's appeals for the "rebels" who faced the cruel treatment of Gaddafi and "the "Pro Gaddafi Military"
Have searched the internet for Avaaz'a wrong doings, and have come across some strange sights.
But for myself I have actually been to Avaaz'a main sight and looked at the "good work" and their "Highlights"
Avaaz have omitted all the "good deeds" they did for Libya and it's civilians. (no mention of carpet bombs that was a part of a "No Fly Zone" campaign).
I can not find any trace of their campaign now,
but I have seen the expensive CGI video which appeals for the 2 party state in the Israel/Palestine situation.
Expensively done with a reasonable and appealing format for those that don't know. Don't know that a two party state will be a disaster. A rascist state that is legitimised.
Avaaz is a government tool.
The same way that Amnesty international has been found to be a government tool in Libya. and that the informants who were given "amnesty" are now leaders in the NTC.
The NTC who have promised to send fighters to Syria.
It's getting to be a very small world in this fast food era of wars and takeovers..
Another good article from the World Socialist web
Friends of Syria” plan war, regime change at Washington’s behest 24 February 2012 The “Friends of Syria” are a gang of political criminals, gathered in Tunisia to plan the latest in a series of destabilization campaigns that have all ended in colonial wars of aggression. Officials from 80 nations are traveling to Tunis, headed by the United States, which has waged half a dozen illegal wars in the past two decades at a cost of hundreds of thousands of lives. At its side stand France and Britain, former colonial powers that once carved up the Middle East between them and want to secure their share of the spoils of any re-division of the region’s oil riches. The imperialist powers are aligned with Turkey and the Gulf sheikhdoms—whose professions of concern for “democracy” are hardly less nauseating than those emanating from Washington, London and Paris. The meeting at Tunis is premised on the claim that the Western powers are intent on protecting popular protests from the brutal regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. The reality is that the imperialist powers’ intelligence agencies and special forces have been instrumental in stoking a sectarian-Sunni movement against Assad, plunging Syria into a bloody civil war.
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2012/feb2012/pers-f24.shtml