American activist launches campaign "Iraqi Soda challenge” to support the movement of Iraq
Shafaq News/ The American activist, John Filson has launched a campaign on Twitter (#IraqiSodaChallenge) to support the ongoing demonstrations in Iraq since October 1 and pointing to the security forces' use of tear gas canisters directly towards the heads of the demonstrators, which killed many of them.
"My Iraqi friends feel very sorry for this nightmare. I am proud of you for helping each other. I will continue to share your feelings and stories, we are with you," Filson tweeted on watching videos showing unarmed demonstrators killed by tear gas.
The idea of the campaign is to re-portray a scene frequently repeated in Iraqi demonstrations by putting a can of soda on the head in an expression of the victim’s scene of tear gas canisters that settled in their heads.
"Tear gas is the new favorite way to kill civilians in Iraq," Filson said in a tweet. "Imagine a soda can head shot!."
Pictures and videos circulated by activists on social media showed protesters injured in the head area with tear gas canisters, which, according to some military analysts, are used in military storming into terrorist dens and not to disperse demonstrators because of their weight and size.
A number of Iraqi activists participated in the hashtag on Twitter and Facebook to pressure the Iraqi government to stop the use of these bombs, which caused the deaths of many demonstrators since the beginning of last October.
John Filson had worked in Iraq as an employee in an American humanitarian organizations in Erbil province in Kurdistan region for two years, and has mastered many of the vocabulary of the Iraqi dialect that he learned during his humanitarian work in Iraq.
