Hundreds of activists in a ‘Freedom Convoy’ who tried to enter Syria from Turkey wave the pre-Baath flag adopted by the Syrian anti-regime opposition before being stopped at a border crossing outside the city of Kilis on March 15, 2012. […] (Getty Images)<\/p>\n
Weird. I thought Turkey was all for freedom convoys and stuff.<\/p>\n
KILIS, Turkey (AFP) \u2014 Hundreds of activists in a “Freedom Convoy” who tried to enter Syria from Turkey were stopped near the border on Thursday, as the uprising against the Damascus regime entered its second year.<\/p>\n
Turkish police stopped hundreds of mostly Syrian activists as they approached a border crossing outside the city of Kilis, but they escorted a small delegation of organisers in two cars to the post.<\/p>\n
But at the crossing, the organisers were prohibited from entering Syria, one of them told AFP.<\/p>\n
“The only answer we got was ‘No way, never!’,” said Moayad Skaif.<\/p>\n
The activists — in a convoy of three buses and 30 cars decorated with flags and loudspeakers — said they were trying to deliver humanitarian aid to Syrians suffering after a year of bloodshed.<\/p>\n
“Our goal is to put pressure in our way on the Syrian government to stop its massacres and its embargo on its own people,” Skaif said.<\/p>\n
He said the aid, including tents, sleeping bags, toiletries, food and beverages, would now be offered to Syrian refugees in Turkey.<\/p>\n
A previous attempt by the Freedom Convoy to enter Syria from Turkey, which is home to a growing number of Syrians fleeing the unrest, was also blocked in January.<\/p>\n
via Eye On The World: Turkey blocks ‘Freedom Convoy’ from entering Syria for the second time since January.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Hundreds of activists in a ‘Freedom Convoy’ who tried to enter Syria from Turkey wave the pre-Baath flag adopted by the Syrian anti-regime opposition before being stopped at a border crossing outside the city of Kilis on March 15, 2012. […] (Getty Images) Weird. I thought Turkey was all for freedom convoys and stuff. KILIS, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":83,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[7190],"class_list":["post-52170","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-syria","tag-syrian-opposition"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52170","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/83"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=52170"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52170\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52170"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52170"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52170"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}