82 people arrested in Turkish-occupied Syria in 2023 – Hevdesti
QAMISHLI, Syria (North Press) – At least, 82 people have been arrested by Turkish-backed armed opposition factions, also known as the Syrian National Army (SNA), in the Turkish-occupied areas in northern Syria in the first quarter of 2023, a local human rights organization said on Thursday.
Hevdesti/Synergy Association said 63 out of 82 people were arrested in Afrin, northwestern Syria, which Turkey occupied in 2018, and 19 detained in Sere Kaniye (Ras al-Ain) and Tel Abyad, north and northeast Syria, which Turkish forces took in 2019.
In 2022, Hevdesti recorded the arrests of 633 people in Afrin and 228 in Sere Kaniye and Tel Abyad.
The Kurdish-majority region of Afrin has been under the occupation of Turkey and the Turkish-backed SNA, since 2018 following a military operation dubbed “Olive Branch” against the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) under the pretext of preserving Turkey’s national security.
On October 9, 2019, Turkey launched the so-called “Peace Spring” military operation against the cities of Sere Kaniye and Tel Abyad to push away the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) from its border as Turkey sees it as an offshoot of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). It resulted in the Turkish occupation of the region and in the displacement of over 300.000 of the region’s inhabitants.
Only 15 of the 82 arrested were released. Two women and two children arrested in 2023 remain behind bars. According to Hevdesti, most are arrested under the pretext of having collaborated with the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES), which governed both regions before the Turkish invasion. Yet the reason behind most arrests is usually an attempt to extract ransoms from relatives.
Interviews conducted with victims reveal that Turkish officials were deeply involved in the arrests. According to Hevdesti, Turkish intelligence and the Turkish-established Military and Civil Police forces are responsible for the most arrests. Witnesses also say that Turkish officials were present during some interrogations, even those where torture was involved.
Hevdesti outlines at least one case of an arrest being directly tied to the earthquake on February 6. As two men inspected their damaged building in Jindires, Civil Police arrested them and handed them over to Military Police. “My friend was kept in a room in the Civil Police headquarter,” one victim narrated. “He was arrested because they claimed he was filming the headquarter, but in fact he was filming my house and the collapsed buildings around it. When I defended him, they also arrested me, where they handed us over to the Military Police forces.” The two men were beaten after police found text messages criticizing the Turkish occupation on their phones. They were released two days later, after notables intervened.
Torture is commonplace in Turkish-occupied regions of Syria. Witnesses quoted by Hevdesti describe “poor detention conditions, including overcrowding, limited access to food and water, and deprivation of medical care.”
Hevdesti says most detainees are held in Military Police-run prisons; at the Hawar Kilis detention facility, near the Turkish border-crossing; or at the al-Ma’sara prison near the city of Azaz, north of the city of Aleppo.