60 students held a flashmob on one of Manchester’s busiest shopping streets on Saturday 10 March to protest against one year of violence in Syria.
The Islamic societies from the University of Manchester, Salford and Manchester Metropolitan University worked together to put on a week of action in response to the killing of civilians. The week of protests mark one year after the ‘Arab Spring’ erupted in Syria.
The students stood still for five minutes on Market Street depicting scenes of violence that civilians in Syria have faced in the year since the Arab Spring. Some were dressed as soldiers, holding toy guns to the heads of people acting as protesters. Two men carried a ‘body’ on their shoulders – wrapped in sheets soaked with fake blood. Two young girls stood silent clutching a sign which read ‘We lost our mother’ whilst a man dressed as a doctor tended to victims of police brutality.
Leaflets were handed out to Saturday shoppers explaining the protest and many seemed bemused by the scene, stopping and staring, others filming the protest on smartphones. The protest ended with a basket of white doves released to symbolise Syrian freedom.
Amin Astewani Vice-Chair of the University of Manchester Islamic Society helped to organise the event; his father was imprisoned and tortured in Syria for two years because of his religion. He had been told by his dad that Guantanamo Bay is like a ‘children’s playground’ compared to Syrian prisons.
Amin said, “As students, we don’t want another genocide like in Bosnia or Rwanda, where the whole world sees what is happening but no one does anything about it.”
Security forces have killed thousands of Syrians since protests began in March 2011, though exact figures of fatalities are not known. Humanitarian aid agencies have been denied access and doctors within the country have been attacked for giving medical treatment to protesters.
