Mes Aynuk Update
The petition to stop the mining at the ancient site Mes Aynuk is plugging along. We hopefully will maintain our current momentum but I am asking for ideas as to how I can help increase the signatures and their rate. If anyone has any suggestion or experience in this arena I would love to hear from you.
Thank you to all who have signed and if you have not please do and ask as many as you can if they will too. The deadline is the end of the year and the mining company has finished building quarters for the workers. The bulldozers are set to start the beginning of 2013. In addition to the loss of these artifacts that date back to the 4th and 5th centuries, the aquifer that supplies water for the three million people and their farms is at risk of compromise by the mining.
This is a complicated and dangerous situation. The workers on the site are risking their lives to do this work for little pay and under pressure in many ways. They must sweep for mines everyday before they can enter the site. They have already suffered the loss of one of their members.
When we began it last Monday there were 1,103 signatures. At this time we have 2,532. Please continue to help. I deeply thank you.
http://www.change.org/petitions/president-hamid-karzai-prevent-destruction-of-ancient-site-of-mes-aynak-the-environmental-damage-3
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Signatures broke 3 thousand overnight. I am amazed. Thank you all so much.
Abdul Qadeer Temore, lead Afghan archaeologist, works on one of the large standing Buddha statues.
Brent Huffman is a documentary filmmaker and assistant professor at the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University. He started making a film about the Mes Aynak site in the summer of 2011 thinking he would be documenting the site before it was demolished and recording the process of rescue archeology. Now he hopes he can use his film to raise awareness to actually save Mes Aynak.
