More than one hundred people gathered outside the Russian Embassy in Canberra on Friday afternoon to protest Russia’s military support of Bashar al-Assad’s government in Syria.
The protesters, mostly Syrian Australians, shouted “down Putin” and “down Assad” out the front of the Embassy.
There were no signs of movement within the embassy grounds.
“We know how the Russians operate … they try to pretend they are not listening, but I know they are recording what we’re saying, and they are hearing what we’re saying,” Khaled Sattouf, president of Australian Syrian Relief, told SBS News.
“Whether they take it on board or not, that’s up to them,” he said.
The civil war in Syria has killed at least 300,000 people, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. Other estimates put the figure as high as 400,000.
Protesters outside the Russian Embassy. Source: SBS
Russian military involvement began in late September last year when Russian warplanes conducted their first airstrikes against opponents of the Syrian government.
Russia claims to only target terrorist organisations in Syria, but the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Russian airstrikes had killed 4,000 civilians in a single year.
“They have been perpetrating destruction on Syria that has not been seen since World War II,” Mr Sattouf said.
Mr Sattouf said the Assad government would have collapsed “give years ago” without the support of Russia and, to a lesser extent, Iran. “90 percent of the blame goes to the Russians,” he said.
One protester speaking into a megaphone accused Putin of being a “modern-day Hitler”. Others carried placards making the same comparison.
Source: SBS
Twelve-year-old Doha Jeniat said she was protesting because the situation in her homeland had worsened since she fled Syria around two years ago.
“If they [the Russians] are listening, I’d like to say please go away from our country. Our country is ours, and not yours.”
Also among the crowd were a handful of Ukrainians. They said they saw parallels between Russian military intervention in Syria and the Russian annexation of Crimea.
“We don’t want Russia to occupy any other territories,” said Ukrainian Australian Liliya Pelikh.
Buses brought some of the protesters to Canberra from Sydney. Others travelled from Adelaide and Melbourne, according to Australian Syrian Relief.
