This morning, January 9, 2025, in response to Turkey's continued attacks on the Democratic Autonomous Administration of Northeast Syria (Rojava, DAANES), many young people blocked flight check-in at Milan Malpensa.
The response they received from airport staff and law enforcement was encirclement and abuse of violence on the young protesters. Some activists were violently separated from the rest of the group and seized. One of them was isolated and taken to a small room: when he was released, he claimed to have been punched and thrown against the wall. The entire group was surrounded by security forces and for five hours they were prevented from leaving the airport.
In a statement activists and activists explain the meaning of their action:
As young people we blocked Turkish Airlines boarding this morning to draw the attention of travelers and the rest of society to the role of Erdogan's AKP/MHP government and its strategic compartments in the ongoing war in different latitudes of the Middle East.
Turkish Airlines is one of the Turkish state's major tools for creating a good image for itself internationally and following its expansionist aims.
Although the state owns just under half of its shares, critics say the company acts under the direction and with the help of the central government. This link has seen Turkish Airlines grouped together with its Gulf rivals by U.S. and EU airlines complaining of violations of state aid rules.
The Turkish president dismissed the concerns of activists who warned that Istanbul's new airport would cause incalculable ecological damage and encourage urban sprawl in a city already over 15 million people. All this in the midst of a climate and ecological crisis.
We denounce Turkey's leading role in supporting ISIS to date.
We denounce the military occupation of the Kurdish canton of Afrin in 2018, with unspeakable violence.
We denounce Turkish support for the fundamentalist group that has seized power in Syria, HTS (formerly Al Nusra).
During his first cabinet meeting of 2025, Turkish President Erdoğan vowed to take swift action against Kurdish forces in Syria and internal dissent. These days, in fact, the Turkish state has continued its heavy attacks on the Tishrin Dam, which have caused water and electricity shortages for about 1 million people in recent weeks.
Just yesterday, civil society in Rojava joined in a procession to protect the Tishreen dam where Turkish-funded jihadist militias are focusing their attacks and the regime bombed the convoy killing five people and several civilians.
The Turkish state also oppresses its own people, of different ethnicities, through practices of denial of cultural identities, instrumentalization of religion, and repression of freedom of the press and expression.
Despite the fact that Turkish Airlines is a colossal company that moves millions of people and earns billions of euros a year, the Turkish state exploits the migration routes and oppresses people who pass through the country coming from afar. The Turkish state uses this humanitarian situation to its advantage and in a perfidious way blackmails Europe, which recently lavished it with 14 billion euros.
The Italian state is also complicit in Turkey's murderous practices being one of the main arms exporters to the country. We have decided to act because we do not accept this injustice and we do not accept the normalization of the situation of world war and chaos.
We are here to defend the common life and hope of coexistence between peoples, which in Rojava as in countless other places in the world is under attack. Solidarity and unity at this time is what we need most. Fighting youth write and will continue to write history!
AGAINST THE FASCIST GOVERNMENTS OF EUROPE AND TURKEY!
LONG LIVE THE POPULAR RESISTANCE IN KURDISTAN AND SYRIA!
Source:
https://www.radiondadurto.org/2025/01/09/malpensa-bloccati-i-check-in-di-turkich-airlines-in-solidarieta-con-il-rojava-violenze-contro-i-manifestanti/