Survivor of Syrian Chemical Attack to Speak in Minneapolis May 4th and 5th
Survivor of Syrian Chemical Attack
to Speak in Minneapolis
Internationally known Palestinean-Syrian activist and citizen journalist Qusai Zakarya will be in Minneapolis on May 4 and 5, the first Syrian from the war zone to speak here.
Zakarya survived the August 2013 chemical attack in Syria, over a year of life under siege in Moadamiya, and numerous death threats. After the chemical attack, Zakarya reported to the international media – giving interviews to the NY Times, the BBC, NBC, CBS and others. He is scheduled to provide testimony about the starvation sieges on April 23 at the United Nations.
Last December, Minnesota members of Friends for a Nonviolent World and Representative Keith Ellison, in partnership with the Syrian Nonviolence Movement, kicked off the International Solidarity Hunger Strike for Syria, a campaign to support Zakarya’s 33-day hunger strike to lift the siege of towns across Syria. Other Minnesotans and people around the world did one day hunger strikes in solidarity.
Zakarya will be telling his powerful story on Sunday, May 4, at 6:30 pm at Crescent Moon Bakery, 2339 Central Ave NE, Minneapolis. Afghani buffet dinner at 5:30 pm for $10.
Congressman Keith Ellison will introduce Zakarya on Monday, May 5, at 7 pm at Plymouth Congregational Church, 1900 Nicollet Avenue, Minneapolis.
Sponsored by: Friends for a Nonviolent World, Global Affairs Committee of Plymouth Congregational Church, the International Solidarity Hunger Strike; Minnesota Committee in Solidarity with the People of Syria (CISPOS).
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Syrian Activist Forced From Hometown Pledges To Keep Publicizing Atrocities
It was around 4:45 a.m. on Aug. 21, 2013, in a suburb to the southwest of Damascus, the last of several neighborhoods to be struck that morning by chemical weapons. In the days that followed, the attacks would become an international scandal, as the United States accused Syrian President Bashar al-Assad of launching the rockets and prepared for potential military retaliation.
Zakarya himself, a 27-year-old former hotel worker raised in Moadamiyeh, would soon emerge as one of the most powerful voices within the ranks of Syrian media activists, who provided the world with a glimpse into the most devastating acts of the Syrian civil war.
"I wish I had one of him in every major city in Syria," says Bayan Khatib, a member of the Syrian opposition's media office, who helped Zakarya contact journalists worldwide reporting on the war. While other towns suffered as much as Moadamiyeh, she says, none had an advocate as influential as Zakarya, who does not use his given name out of safety concerns for his family.
The rocket strikes marked the start of Zakarya's evolution from just another Syrian nursing grievances against Assad into a tireless public opponent of the regime. He lived through the signature events of the war, from chemical attacks to forced starvation to complicated efforts to halt the violence. And like millions of others, the conflict would eventually force him into exile.
