A group of pro-Kurdish activists in San Diego held a peaceful demonstration decrying Turkey’s attacks on Kurds. Organized by a group called the Overpass Light Brigade (OLB), a light display emblazoned with the words “Bomb ISIS, Not Our Kurds,” was seen by hundreds, if not thousands of southern California drivers.
“Bomb ISIS Not Our Kurds”
The light display was intended to bring attention to the recent attacks by the Turkish government on Kurdish forces, namely the Kurdistan Worker’s Party (PKK) in Syria and Iraq.
Turkey has begun bombing strongholds of the Kurdish PKK in Iraq and Syria, as a response to the deaths of Turkish police officers and Turkish military servicemembers at the hands of PKK members.
The OLB believes that America must persuade Turkey, a NATO member, to call off the bombing campaign on the Kurds, and instead focus on defeating the so-called Islamic State terrorist group, which is terrorizing innocent people in Iraq and Syria.
Kurds in San Diego
The Overpass Light Brigade (OLB) of San Diego is a group of activists who use lighted letter displays over highways as a way to start conversations about social and economic injustice.
The OLB coordinated the display with members of San Diego’s local Kurdish community, which has been estimated at around 10,000. The Kurds in San Diego are primarily from Iraqi Kurdistan, and are almost all refugees from the early 1990s.
The Kurds in San Deigo have arrived over the past three decades, fleeing the various campaigns of terror conducted by the Ba’ath regime against the people of Iraqi Kurdistan. Today, many of these Kurds are naturalized US citizens, and are actively campaigning to support the Kurds fighting the self-declared Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.
[Read more at Overpass Light Brigade]
How Do we get involved in San Diego?