Arab Spring

PAX supports Syrian activists

Karolina Bonde

Adopt a Revolution

 

Do you want to support Syrian activists? Visit Adopt a Revolution and find out how!

Adopt a Revolution is a crowdfunding campaign to support nonviolent activism in Syria. For more than three years, Syrian activists keep protesting for human rights and freedom under the risk of their lives. They organise themselves in local committees to offer a real alternative to civil war and military intervention. The activists supported by Adopt a Revolution do not only fight dictatorships, but also the violence provoked by armed groups. Despite all the violence they do not give up hope, as they still believe in a better future. As a matter of fact: they are working on it now and they need your help.  And all they need is strenghth and solidarity!

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Marcell’s visit to the Netherlands – 28-31 October 2014

Jesper

Standing at the arrivals at the airport I am looking around holding a paper in my hand with ‘MARCELL’ written on it. Making sure the sign is visible, I am getting impatient – it takes more than forty-five minutes already and I don’t know what this Marcell looks like. Suddenly I almost get hit by a trolly with three suit cases on top, and a woman behind it calling: ‘Are you Irma? Than I am supposed to go with you!’, and then, slightly grumpy: ‘I need food’. Meet Marcell Shehwaro, a thirty-year old blogger and activist from Aleppo, the biggest city in Syria. She is visiting the Netherlands as a part of her trip to different European cities – the next stops are Brussels and Berlin. Her goal is to raise awareness about the wrong display of reality here in Europe – the message we receive (mainly through media) does not represent the true situation in Syria.

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Meet Wael

Jesper

Wael Abbas is a very well known activist from Egypt who has found over 260.000 people on Twitter interested enough to press the Follow-button to watch his every step (with over 214.000 tweets we conclude he’s quite active). Wael was one of the most active bloggers and Twitter-users during the Egyptian revolution and still operates from Cairo.

Wael even has his own Wikipedia-page:

“Wael Abbas (Arabic: وائل عباس‎) (born November 14, 1974 in Egypt) is an internationally renowned Egyptian journalist, blogger, and human rights activist,[1] who blogs at Misr Digital (Egyptian Awareness).[2] He reported an incident of mob harassment of women, and broadcast several videos of police brutality. His actions led to the conviction of police for torture, but he has been harassed by the Egyptian government, and his accounts with YouTubeand Yahoo were closed. YouTube has since restored his account and most of his videos. Facebook had deleted Wael’s account but it has since been restored”

Wael is very urged to teach more activists about the different strategies to broadcast your own ‘news’ items, which was also an important part of our Activist Academy in Beirut this spring. Read about his masterclass in Beirut, listen to his tips and start broadcasting yourself!

Read Wael’s famous blogs [Arabic] and start following him on Twitter too: @waelabbas