The Lützerath Bleibt and Make Rojava Green Again campaigns are organizing an internationalist youth festival under the slogan "Join struggles - overcome capitalism" in Lützerath in the Rhenish lignite mining area, offering a program with music, food, workshops, a children's program and much more.

The festival aims at bringing the European climate justice movement and the Kurdish liberation movement closer together, creating a space of exchange and a common culture of resistance. Other initiatives such as the alliance against the animal industry have signed the call and also support the open letter to the climate justice movement, which calls for action against the ongoing attacks by the Turkish state on the self-governing areas in Rojava (Syria) and southern Kurdistan (Iraq).

The festival kicked off earlier today with a joint statement by Make Rojava Green Again, Lützerath Bleibt and the Kurdish youth movement TekoJIN, which stressed that, “The stronger we are united against capitalism, the more successful we can achieve. It is us, of course, who will give the greatest answer to fascism in the joint struggle we will be waging.”

The festival, which attracts ecologist, anti-fascist, anti-capitalist, leftist and feminist youth, offers a rich programme with a wide range of activities, also for children.

In a statement in the name of Kurdish youth organizations TCŞ and TekoJIN, activist Viyan Amed saluted the guerrilla struggle against the Turkish invasion attempts in guerrilla-controlled Medya Defense Zones in southern Kurdistan (northern Iraq).

“All youths will respond to fascism in an organized way everywhere as part of the “Werin Cenga Azadiyê” [Come to the Freedom Battle] campaign,” Amed said.

Following the speech, activists staged a march with torches and images of Kurdish people’s leader, Abdullah Öcalan, who has been subjected to aggravated isolation in Turkey’s Imrali Island Prison since 1999, when he was deported from Kenya to Turkey as a result of an international conspiracy.