Thousands gather in Dusseldorf for mass rally against fascism

Thousands have started to gather in Dusseldorf, Germany for a mass rally organized with the motto “No Pasaran! Fascism won’t go through! Freedom for Öcalan and all political prisoners”.

43 Kurdistani, Turkish, Syriac/Assyrian, Armenian and German institutions formed a committee and are holding a centralized march today in Dusseldorf to protest the ban Germany issued on Kurdish symbols. The campaign uses the slogan “#NoPasaran” and will include social media efforts, legal action and democratic demonstrations. The kick-off has been with the hashtag #NoPasaran on Twitter Friday evening.

The demonstration organized with the motto “No Pasaran! Fascism won’t go through! Freedom for Öcalan and all political prisoners” will protest the AKP fascism, aggravated isolation of Kurdish People’s Leader Abdullah Öcalan, repression of political prisoners and criminalization of the Kurds and democrats in Germany.

The demonstration, which will see participants from all across Europe, will start in two arms, one red, and the other green. The green arm, involving north Germany, south Germany and France will come together at 10 a.m. in front of the NRW State Parliament. The red arm of the demonstration will be joined by participants from Austria, Sweden, Belgium, Netherlands and the federal state of North Rhine-Westphalia. This arm starts at 10 a.m. in front of the central train station. Each of the arms will pass through the city center and then gather at the rally grounds. It is expected that many Kurdish, Turkish, German and English politicians will hold speeches here.

While posters of Öcalan and flags of Kurdish organizations like YPG and YPJ are banned for this demonstration as well, the Organization Committee stressed that they will make no concessions and carry Öcalan’s posters despite the ban.