On Thursday afternoon, a well-attended assembly at the Carmignani Pole (UniPi) convened by Rise Up 4 Rojava Pisa decreed the occupation of the university to protest against the war Turkey is waging in Rojava (north-eastern Syria) and the mountains of Iraq. Present at the occupation was the pro-rector for university community cohesion and the right to study, Enza Pellecchia, who, after a long discussion, stated that the University of Pisa would take a public stand against this war of Erdogan's Turkey.

The initiative is part of the two-day Stop Turkish bombs initiative that will continue today with participation in the general strike against the war and the procession that will start at 9.00 a.m. from Piazza Vittorio Emanuele.

At 3.00 p.m. there will be a moment in Piazza dei Miracoli and at 5.00 p.m. there will be a public initiative at the busy Polo Carmignani for information and updating with correspondents of Radio Onda d'Urto who have just returned from Rojava and the intervention of some lecturers and lawyers: Andrea Vento, Federico Olivieri, Martina Bianchi.

The claim is strong and the stance necessary given the very serious media and cultural silence that is accompanying this war.

Below is the communiqué of the occupation that amply argues why the University was chosen as the location for this mobilisation.

"Today, 1 December 2022, given what is happening in the territories of North and East Syria, as students of the University of Pisa we decided to occupy the Carmignani Pole.

Since the early hours of Sunday 20 November 2022, in fact, intense aerial bombardments by the Turkish state have been taking place against the autonomous territories of North and East Syria (Rojava), bombardments that are mainly affecting the civilian population. Turkish President Erdogan has already declared that these operations are only the beginning, and that a ground invasion will soon begin.

The Islamic State has not yet been completely defeated and Turkey's President Erdogan has already ordered military operations against the autonomous areas of Rojava, to the indifference of the Western governments that had so far used Kurdish forces. These attacks were and still are carried out also through the use of chemical weapons, which are banned by every international convention.

The 'sword and claw' military operation, which began on 20 November, is aimed at wiping out the democratic experience of Rojava, but not only that: in fact, joint attacks are also being carried out by Turkey and Iran on the mountains of Iraqi Kurdistan, a centre of life and autonomous organisation for many years. At the same time, the Iranian government is also conducting military operations in the Rojhilat area (Iranian Kurdistan), where protests have been going on for months following the killing of Jina Mahsa Amini, to the cry of Jin Jiyan Azadi, 'woman, life, freedom', one of the main slogans of the revolutionary women of Rojava.

Because of all this, since we make our values such as ecology, feminism, democracy, which are the pillars of the revolutionary experience of Rojava, we feel the need to take sides even in these latitudes.

We wanted to mobilise in order to give a signal and to break the shameful media and institutional silence that is covering Erdogan's crimes, and we decided to occupy the University in order to regain a space for confrontation and organisation within the city. The university is increasingly a one-sided learning space, where notions and worldviews are imparted to us as if they were the only ones possible. These days, instead, we want to make our classrooms an open place, a place of analysis and questioning of what around us is, and above all, of organisation.

In particular, we decided to occupy the University of Pisa because, as an academic institution, it is directly involved with the military operations of these days. Turkey, in fact, in addition to being NATO's second army, is one of the main buyers of 'technological' weapons produced in Italy by companies such as Leonardo S.p.A., which has its headquarters in Ankara, and with which our universities have for years had close research and production collaborations."