“We live in hell like homeless dogs”, a phrase of $4,000 cost in Afrin
Afrin – North-Press Agency
"We live in hell like homeless dogs", this phrase was sent by an old man from the village of Chaqala in the district of Shiye (Sheikh al-Hadid) to his son, who lives in a European country via WhatsApp application, costing him $4,000, when the old man’s mobile-phone was checked in a checkpoint by "Sulaiman Shah” militants, a Turkish-Backed militia in Afrin.
“Sulaiman Shah” militia that belongs to the armed opposition groups arrested the old Kurdish man, as he was passing by a checkpoint when they heard a phone ring-tone message, to demand a ransom of $4,000 to pardon him, accusing him of having "4 sons in Europe and the Gulf countries, each one of them should pay $1,000 and the story will end.”
"Your phone witnessed you"
The detained father isn't the only one whose phone was the reason for his detention. The armed opposition groups constantly check mobile phones at their security checkpoints, cutting off the villages and towns by intensive checkpoints. According to local residents, there are 7 checkpoints on Afrin-Rajo road, which collects taxes and check mobile phones, especially of the indigenous people (the Kurds) in Afrin.
While a local source in Afrin told North-Press: "Being a Kurd in Afrin, means that your mobile phone will be a witness to detain you and possibly to kill you,” pointing out that, the first sentence to be uttered on bus passengers when they pass through the checkpoints is "let the Kurdish one among you give us his ID and phone.”
"Mother and her baby in prison"
In early October, the military police of Turkey's armed opposition groups arrested a man and his wife along with their baby son at a checkpoint, after checking their mobile phones, and accusing them of filming. As she talked to North-Press, the wife said: "I was with my husband and our baby on a motorcycle, we were arrested under charges of filming with our mobile phones. They took us into prison at the (commercial high school) with our baby.”
They were in two opposite rooms
"My husband and I were in two opposite rooms in the prison. We were talking to each other, but the militants prevented us from speaking Kurdish,” the wife said.
"Then they sent my phone to Turkey to check and analyze the data, but there was nothing suspicious in my phone. They released me three days later, while they kept my husband. It was a cruel experience especially that I have a baby!” She added.
While the husband remained in detention for a month to suffer the most severe torture, as he told North-Press that, "the armed groups kicked me from all sides as I was thrown onto the ground, they poured water on the floor of the torture chamber, they dropped electric wires in the water and asked me to walk, and they connected the electricity asking me to confess and give names.”
“I was sure that there was nothing suspicious in my phone, so I was confident of myself", he added.
The Turkish military and the affiliated armed opposition groups entered Afrin in a military invasion, launched by the Turkish military on January 20 last year, to commit widespread violations against thousands of civilians in the Syrian-Kurdish region of Afrin.