Afrinpost – Special
Turkish intelligence in the occupied Afrin region tracks the conditions of its original Kurdish population carefully, specifically the citizens who remained in it after its occupation by the Turkish forces and the militia of the Muslim Brotherhood.
The occupation authorities formed a security database by imposing the issuance of “identification cards” and preparing nominal lists of those they assume are wanted on fabricated charges that they direct against all Kurdish citizens who remained in Afrin region, or who returned after the occupation, noting that a large number of Afrin residents remain in it were subjected to investigations and were subjected to detention, arbitrary arrest and forced disappearance, and as long as the security and military militias and councils were established by the occupation, all cases of kidnapping in the occupied region are carried out with their knowledge and supervision, and dozens of the kidnapped residents of Afrin were transferred to Turkish territory.
Means are multiple and information are the goal
The security dimensions of the step taken by the Turkish occupation authorities by issuing identification cards can be understood, as all the information and data taken from the people are transferred electronically and the cards database is linked directly to the central Turkish Ministry of Interior, and upon entering a person’s data, this information is automatically saved in the main servers of the existing program in Ankara, before the card is printed and the person concerned receives it, the information has been saved in the Turkish Ministry of Interior.
In the context of its eagerness to collect information of the people, the Turkish occupation authorities have changed a large number of village mayors and replaced them with others loyal to them, and removed the mayor’s duty from the service and administrative framework to the security and information framework, and the mayor is dismissed if he does not perform the task.
It is not possible to acquit the charitable institutions and societies that entered the region with its consent and knowledge. Rather, the Turkish and Muslim Brotherhood organisations had a presence starting from the day the occupation was declared, and they continue their activities until today, and they have links with the Turkish intelligence service, and they collect detailed information under the pretext of determining the size of relief aid for each family. The paradox is that most of the Kurdish people of Afrin are deprived of aid, rather their properties and fruits are stolen, but the goal of collecting information is achieved.
Risks of deliberate neglect of the place of registration and the register number
The identification cards ignored the person’s original place of registration and the register number, as there is no clause to record this information in the card, but this information is kept in the paper file, which is a hard copy of a copy of the personal identity or the individual record that the person delivered to the civil registry employee, and it can be damaged or lost for any reason,
For example, the settler coming from Eastern Ghouta and residing today in Afrin, has in his personal card issued by the Syrian Ministry of Interior a special field for registration and the secretariat of the civil registry that belongs to him, and the Turkish civil registry program ignored the place and registration number in the identification card, and even records the current data in it as being a resident of Afrin, without the original one from whom he was displaced, while the place and date of birth are indicated, and some other detailed information obtained is not mentioned in the identification card, such as marital status, distinctive signs and blood group.
According to the new Turkish identification cards, it is not possible to distinguish between the original Kurdish residents of Afrin and settlers from other governorates, not even the hundreds of Palestinian families coming from Yarmouk camp, who previously had identity cards according to UNRWA standards, in which the person is mentioned as a Palestinian refugee.
In this way, the Turkish occupation authorities are trying to document the demographic change in the circles they have created, in parallel with the continued seizure of homes and real estate, and these measures would have long and dangerous effects on the identity and demographic composition of the region.
Insufficient justification
Those in charge of the departments established by the occupation, including the local council in Afrin, justified the matter earlier, under the pretext that the identification cards are not permanent identity cards, but rather a security and administrative measure for statistical reasons, because many settlers do not have official documents to identify them. However, this argument is fallen, as the cards were imposed on settlers who have identity cards and even on the original Kurds of Afrin, and there was a threat to cut relief aid and prevent children from going to school in the event that the identification card was not organized, but in reality the card is the one approved in daily life when visiting the security, administrative and health institutions established by the occupation.
Obliteration of indigenous identity
The “Syrians for Truth” website published on 9/21/2019 an investigation entitled “Turkish identification cards” obliterating the identity of the indigenous and displaced population, in which it said: Turkey has designed a civil records system to include specific administrative areas that do not allow registering the real / original record of the displaced person and his birthplace , so that his card cannot be distinguished from the original resident’s card. The investigation provided detailed examples and interviews of employees of the Civil Status Department about the dimensions and risks of these cards.
In general, all the measures taken by the Turkish occupation authorities, which are carried out through the departments they established, as well as the activity of relief societies, to provide information about the original people of the region, goes with the Turkish intelligence services, and on the basis of which the demographic change measures are evaluated and followed up in the entire occupied Afrin region. The report included some opinions of settlers from different areas who refused the identification cards and said that it may be a step in the path of preventing them from returning to their homes and villages from which they were displaced from.
