Afrinpost
Islamic militias affiliated with the Turkish occupation and the Muslim Brotherhood continue to use kidnapping and arrest as a means of blackmail, pressure and restrictions on the remainder of the Kurdish indigenous population in the occupied Afrin region, with the aim of expelling them from their homes for the benefit of Islamic settlers loyal to them from various conflict areas in Syria, the last of which is Idlib, the last kidnappings were in the village of Burj Haider in Afrin countryside.
The kidnapping comes despite the United Nations calling for the release of the kidnappees and detainees in Syria, where the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights warned on Friday, of the high risk of mass infection with the Corona virus in prisons in Syria, noting that the Syrian regime has not taken any action in this regard so far.
Speaking to reporters from Geneva, UNHCR spokesperson Robert Colville said that the situation in all official temporary prisons was alarming, especially in overcrowded central prisons, in detention facilities run by the four government security services and in Sednaya Military Prison.
Colville reported receiving numerous reports of deaths in facilities run by the four security branches and in Sednaya, even before Cofid-19 appeared, including as a result of torture and denial of medical care.
Vulnerable groups detained in Syria, according to the UNHCR, include the elderly, women, children and many people who suffer from chronic health conditions, some of them as a result of the ill-treatment and neglect they experienced in detention.
Despite the small scale of this, UNHCR has expressed similar concerns about the risk to people held in overcrowded and unsanitary facilities run by non-state armed groups in the northwest, north and east.
Mr. Colville said that the Commission was informed of the recent legislative pardon issued by the Syrian government on March 22, which grants amnesty for some crimes and deserters, as well as reductions in sentences for young and other detainees.
UNHCR urged the Syrian regime and armed groups to take urgent measures – like other countries – to release sufficient numbers of detainees to prevent the spread of Covid-19 and cause more loss of life and misery after nine years of “death unabated,” and the destruction of the health system and displacement.
The Commission also called on all parties to allow humanitarian actors and medical teams unimpeded access to prisons and other places of detention to verify the conditions in which detainees live and assess their needs.
The Commission urged to reduce or suspend the sanctions currently hindering the supply of medicines and medical equipment to any part of Syria during this pandemic, noting that failure to take action on this would hinder the rapid and effective response to health care needed to prevent or contain the spread of the coronavirus, and thus the possibility contribute to great loss of life.
A UNHCR spokesperson expressed concern about the parties to the conflict in Syria using basic services such as access to water and electricity as a weapon, “which puts the lives of a large population at risk at a time when access to water and sanitation is more important than ever to help people protect themselves are at risk of developing Covid-19. ”
Consequently, the invitation lacked an explicit description of the Islamic militias affiliated with the Turkish occupation, and focused only the prisons of the Syrian regime, bearing in mind that the Foundation for the Families of Detainees in Afrin, has asked the Turkish occupation authorities that oversee the work of the Islamic militias affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood under the name “Syrian National Army / Free Army” “ by releasing the kidnappees in the prisons of the occupation and its gunmen, in conjunction with similar measures resorted to by most countries against their detainees for fear of the spread of the Corona virus between them, especially in Turkey.
The Foundation issued a statement on the first of April, through which it appealed to the relevant international and local authorities to carry out their duties to put pressure on the Turkish occupation authorities, and that “ they don’t allow Turkey to violate international laws relating to detainees.” Any outbreak of the epidemic in prisons “for Turkey and the relevant international bodies.”
The statement was presented to three human rights organizations operating in northern Syria, indicating that there are about 3,400 unaccounted for persons in the prisons of the Turkish occupation and its militias, since its military occupation was applied to the Kurdish region of Afrin on the eighteenth of March 2018.
