Prague, Jan 15 (CTK) – Participants in the march from Berlin to Aleppo in protest against the war in Syria entered Prague, passed by the Syrian and Russian embassies and ended their route at the John Lennon Wall on Sunday.
The participants also stopped at the Jan Palach Memorial in the square bearing the name of this 20-year-old student who burnt himself to death in 1969 to rouse the society from lethargy following the 1968 Soviet-led Warsaw Pact troops invasion of Czechoslovakia.
Several dozen activists set out for the Civil March for Aleppo from Berlin on December 26. Their number temporarily increased to some 200 in the Czech capital.
The participants in the march, initiated by journalist and blogger Anna Alboth, want to express solidarity with people not only in Aleppo.
She told reporters on Sunday that if people joined the march at least for a while, they might think about the situation in Aleppo.
The activists started the route in Roztoky near Prague on Sunday morning and they reached the Syrian Embassy in Prague-Bubenec around noon. Both observers and opponents were waiting there for the march.
The participants carried Syrian flags and banners in support of the march reading “Stop Putin in Syria” and “Assad Is the Biggest Terrorist. He Belongs to the Hague.”
Several opponents to the march were shouting slogans “Go back where you come from” and “One way ticket.” Their banners featured Syrian President Bashar Assad, Russian President Vladimir Putin and U.S. President-elect Donald Trump.
From the Syrian embassy, the march continued to the nearby Russian embassy. It ended at the Lennon Wall in Kampa, covered with Lennon’s portrait, his texts and other sgraffiti, which became a peace symbol, in the afternoon.
The participants rely on the locals’ aid. “The reactions are great. The church is helping a lot. They can stay in vicarages where they get food as well,” Tomas Kozel, from the support team in charge of the Czech section of the march, told CTK.The activists are still to cover some 3000 kilometres.
After the Czech Republic, the march is supposed to enter Vienna at the end of January. From Austria, the activists will go in the opposite direction than the flow of refugees, across Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia, Macedonia and Greece to Turkey. If they managed this route, they would like to continue to Aleppo, northern Syria.
