By Dilsoz Youssef
QAMISHLI, Syria (North Press) – It is very important to present reports that document the human rights violations committed by the SNA against the civilians of Sere Kaniye and Tel Abyad, said Orhan Kamal, member at Synergy Associations for Victims, on Tuesday.
Synergy/Hevdesti is a non-profit organization comprised of journalists, human rights activists, and researchers from Sere Kaniye and Tel Abyad who aim to document the violations committed in the two cities by Syrian armed opposition factions.
The two cities of Sere Kaniye (Ras al-Ain) in the north of Hasakah and Tel Abyad in the north of Raqqa have been under the Turkish occupation since 2019 following a military operation dubbed “Peace Spring” that was launched by the Turkish forces and their affiliated armed opposition factions, aka the Syrian National Army (SNA).
“The local and international public opinion must be informed of what is happening in the areas occupied by Turkey and its affiliated factions,” Kamal told North Press.
Kamal’s remarks were made in an exclusive interview with North Press during his participation in a dialogue session held by North Press that discussed the state of human rights and violations in Sere Kaniye. The dialogue session presented a comprehensive report on those violations titled “Atrocities committed by SNA in Turkish-occupied areas in north Syria”.
Kamal added that the main goal of the violations committed is Turkey’s attempt, with the support of the SNA factions, to change the demography of the area, force civilians to leave their areas, and achieve Erdogan’s project in housing one million Syrian refugees, a plan that was announced by Erdogan in 2018.
The session based on a report that outlines stories of survivors and victims who were killed and tortured, and unveils the number of covert and overt prisons in Sere Kaniye, in addition satellite images showing the locations of some prisons. It also reveals the liability of the SNA towards those prisons and the civilians detained there.
“The report includes investigations conducted by the Monitoring and Documentation Department for three months, in addition to testimonies of former detainees and relatives of victims who were tortured and killed extrajudicially,” said Helez Abdulaziz, head of the Monitoring and Documentation Department at North Press. “The sites of many prisons and a list of detainees’ names were documented.”
She added that recommendations would be submitted by the participants for the concerned parties, governments, and the United Nations, with the aim of achieving accountability, justice, redress for victims, and ensuring no impunity.