On Saturday 19.10.2019 we organized a demonstration against the occupation war of the Turkish state and its allied jihadist wargroups. We have organized similar kind of demonstrations with different kind of topics – at times because of the situation in North Syria or the Turkish domestic policy situation – since year 2014.
We announced the demonstration to the police over 24 hours before the demonstration started. The police contacted us beforehand but did not say anything about their unconventional stance concerning the car with a soundsystem. Never before has the soundcar been a problem.
Suddenly, just in a beginning of the demonstration the police denyed the use of the soundcar and was not willing to give any kind of explanation for this and finally attacked against the demonstration as the pictures and videos in social media have shown. If the soundcar would have been a real problem, the police could have contacted us already for example a day before.
Instead, the police had brought behind the corner of the next door buildings several riot police cars (Mörkö), tens of riot police, dogs, horses, tasers and FN303 -riot guns and just used the soundcar as an excuse to create a totaly unnecessary conflict with people participating in our demonstration.
This was a consciously organized provocation by the police, a setup. When we realised what it was all about we calmed the situation and demanded the riot police to leave the place. When the riot police had left we continued the demonstration as usual, without any incidents, marching through Helsinki center and yelling slogans to support the self-defence of Rojava.
We emphasize that there was a good spirit in the demonstration and around 500 people, including several families with children, stayed together in front of the immoral attack of the police. Apart from this unnecessary incident the demonstration continued peacefully. Nobody was arrested, and we thank all the participants for a strong, unified and determined way of reacting to the sudden provocation of the police.
Naturally, we will continue having demonstrations and we won’t let the police provocate us or manipulate the image of our demonstrations with their provocations. We will investigate the lawfullness of the actions of the police with lawyers and in addition request the explanations needed also from the police.
The mobilisation against the Turkish occupation war continues and the public opinion and the sympathies of the Finnish people are strongly on our side. Demonstrations are now organized in several cities and more than ever before. We will continue on this path until the Turkish occupation army leaves the Kurdish territory. #TurkkiUlosRojavasta #Riseup4Rojava #WomenDefendRojava
Yhdessä Rojavan puolesta (Together for Rojava)
19.10.2019
YRP
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