Several hundred students and lecturers of the University of Zurich responded to the call of the student association "University of Below" under the slogan "Defend Afrin". Before the action began, a large banner reading "Defended Rojava" was unfurled in the cafeteria. The protesters kept chanting "Turkish army out of Kurdistan", "Europe finances, Turkey massacres" and "Everywhere is Afrin, everywhere is resistance", and painted solidarity messages on the walls.

Speeches stressed that the attack on Afrin was also an attack on the future of the peoples of the world, because the Rojava project was a democratic model of global importance.