afrinpost– Exclusive
Video footage has surfaced on social media showing a sheikh named “Ahmed Al-Zayyuk” with two Yezidi men, “Shekho Aref and Haider Aref,” who are seen forced to declare their conversion to Islam. This is the first time that Yezidis have been openly pressured and blackmailed to convert to Islam after being subjected to violations and harassment to leave their religion and convert to Islam under duress since Turkey’s military and its Syrian rebel allies have taken full control of northwest Syria’s Afrin region
After investigation, “afrinpost” obtained information that the citizens are from the family of “Aref Sheikh” and are Yezidi adherents from the village of Qibar\ Qîbarê, near the center of Afrin. They were forced to film the video at one of the headquarters of the “Ahrar al-Sharqiya” militia in the city of Afrin by a man named “Abu Omar al-Dairi.”
Abu Omar al-Dairi is a leader in the “Ahrar al-Sharqiya” militia who seized the homes of the “Aref Sheikh” family in the village of Qibar. When the sons of Aref complained to the military police militia, its elements attacked them with knives and sticks, threatening them with either converting to Islam and leaving the village or falsely accusing them and imprisoning them.
At the beginning of the Turkish and its extremist Islamic militias’ control over Afrin, the five sons of “Aref Sheikh” were abducted and brutally beaten, and Sheikh Aref’s car and his brother’s house near Sabri gas station were seized.
The Turkish forces are forcing the remaining Yezidis in Afrin to convert to Islam through distorted interpretations of the Yezidi religion by sheikhs affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood who use a policy of intimidation and excommunication against the remaining Kurdish Yezidis in the occupied Afrin region in northern Syria.
Turkish forces and the affiliated militias have committed criminal policies against humanity that rise to the level of ethnic cleansing and genocide. Approximately 17 Yezidi religious shrines have been documented that have been tampered with or destroyed, and Yezidis have been subjected to various forms of torture and sexual violence.
