Pulse Media: Syrians are slowly dying of malnutrition – but not for lack of food. A military blockade surrounds dozens of Syrian towns. This starvation siege prevents 1.5 million Syrians from receiving food or medicine.

Qusai Zakarya is one of them. He is 28 years old. Qusai declared a hunger strike on November 26, to demand food and medicine be allowed to reach civilians across military lines in Syria. “We are all hungry here in my hometown anyway. Let me be hungry for a purpose,” Qusai says.

We are starting the first phase of a “rolling” solidarity hunger strike onFriday, December 20, where someone will do a hunger strike every day in support of the hunger strikers in Syria through the rest of December.

We are also working on putting together a list of supporters for launching a larger campaign leading up to the Geneva Conference in January. We are asking that you commit to one day of a symbolic hunger strike and that you give us permission to put your name on the materials to publicize the hunger strikes more widely. We also ask, if you are able, to send in a photo of yourself or group to stopthesiege@gmail.com, maybe with a sign illustrating your participation.

Our goals:

• To call for food and medicine now to all besieged towns in Syria.
• To call for a binding resolution from the UN Security Council requiring the regime in Syria and all armed parties to allow humanitarian organizations immediate unfettered access to aid the civilian population without discrimination, including cross-border access and cross-line access (from regime-controlled areas into rebel-controlled areas).
• To alert media and political representatives to this situation.
• To support this act of civil resistance in Syria.

Can you join us this holiday season in standing in solidarity with Syrians? People of conscience everywhere must act to break the siege that is affecting over a million people.
In Solidarity and Hope,

• Gilbert Achcar, Professor, SOAS, University of London
• Noam Chomsky, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
• Simon Critchley, Professor of Philosophy, The New School (New York)
• Jürgen Habermas, German philosopher
• Adam Shatz, Senior Editor, London Review of Books
• Keith Ellison, U.S. Representative for Minnesota’s 5th Congressional District
• Razan Ghazzawi, Syrian blogger-activist & former political prisoner
• Rola Hallam, Syrian Doctor and Humanitarian Worker
• Norman Finkelstein, political scientist, professor, and author, US
• Bill Fletcher Jr, Writer/Activist
• Slavoj Žižek, University of Ljubljana (Slovenia)

(and others…)