The Center for Documenting Violations in Northern Syria announced on 1 April 2018 to ensure accurate and independent documentation of all types of human rights violations taking place in northern Syria with a view to establishing a fundamental reference to such violations.
The Center operates through field monitors deployed on the ground in northern Syria and work will be concentrated on various areas in northern Syria with good access.
Methodology:
The Center documents survivors ‘novels , victims’ families, refugees and local populations, analyzes data, verifies photographs, video footage, medical reports and reports on violations, crimes committed and human rights violations.
The Center relies on dissemination of statistics on its databases periodically, in the form of daily documentation and weekly, monthly and annual reports, accompanied by pictures and documents that they have, in addition to the issuance of dozens of human rights reports on subjects of violations and maintains a database of various documented violations include full details of Place, time, destination, damage and source.
Introduction :
The longer conflict in Syria lasts, the greater tragedy of the Syrians. Undoubtedly that various parties to the conflict in Syria are practicing human rights violations.
The conflict in Syria has taken a hesitant approach, which has sometimes appeared in form of internal and sectarian strife, at regional and international levels, to take a dangerous direction towards an ethnic conflict fueled and supported by the regional parties with all kinds of support. Turkey has also penetrated areas and cities in northern Syria through its army and its attempt to impose a new regime and link the cities that have been administratively and controlled by its governors through Turkish governors. It is considered a violation of the UN principles, which explicitly states that states do not attack each other militarily and is considered a direct occupation.
The daily violations in cities of northern Syria, which have been brought under the pretext of restoring security and stability, are a grave violation of the principles of Charter of the United Nations.
Despite tightening of Article 2 of Charter of the United Nations on the issue of sovereignty and urged States not to interfere in the affairs of other States and to prevent the use of force and went even further when the Charter in Chapter VII of the right to intervene to the Security Council to respond to aggression against any state, On international peace and security, a situation that can be dropped on legal and legal status of the presence of Turkish forces in Syria in general and particularly Afrin in violation of international law and all international charters.
Entrance:
The Turkish forces and their Syrian opposition militias continue to commit further violations against civilians. Violations include assassinations, killings, abductions, torture, displacement, burning houses, stealing, destroying or burning contents or others .
In the Center for Documenting Violations in Northern Syria, we were able to document dozens of these cases, despite the difficult access to relevant information and the inability of individuals who were assaulted to declare anything for fear of retaliation. The absence of media, civil society organizations and human rights organizations, banned their actives in Afrin, contributed to the media gathering on the reality of what is happening in Afrin and areas of Shahba, where Turkey imposes the prohibition of dissemination of any information including those crimes.
Afrin area in north-west Syria has been witnessing extensive human rights violations since Turkey’s military control of it, together with pro-Syrian armed groups, on 18 March 2018.
Civilians of the region who remain vulnerable to theft, physical assaults, intimidation, kidnapping and killings, as well as discrimination against those associated with Kurdish fighters or any Kurdish political entity.
At the Center for Documentation of Violations, we monitored hundreds of cases of violations during June and July, a documentation that we reached through our field team and collaborators with great difficulty, which represents only 30% of all violations that are very difficult to reach.
During the period from 1 November to 30 November of this year amounted to:
(33) killing cases , including (11) children, (83) injuries to civilians, children, women and men, (24) cases of abduction and abuse of men, women and children, 33 raiding and assaults on populated houses in Afrin and its villages, the Center also monitored and recorded many cases of explosions in the Syrian north and more than 10 cases of clashes between fighters he gunmen causing panic among civilians and many cases of arrest and kidnapping for ransom demand in Afrin, in addition to confiscation of property and property damage in Afrin and case of shelling populated areas where the center registered (8) cases Many of the manifestations of the Syrian conspiracies of the control of armed factions loyal to Turkey on the areas in the north of Syria and also recorded the Center’s confessions by the leaders of armed violations in north of Syria, in addition to the settlement of displaced from regions and cities of Syria in the city of Afrin in an attempt to bring a demographic change in the region and recently reports of a large spread of narcotics in those areas controlled by so-called Syrian opposition.
Therefore, we see that through the follow-up of the humanitarian situation in the Syrian north in the areas occupied by the Turkish government with help of armed Syrians, there is an increase in violations by these factions brought by Turkish government, despite dozens of media and legal reports issued respectively by competent agencies, International or local, as if there is a race between militants to commit crimes there in the north of Syria in general and in Afrin in particular, this suggests a dangerous indicator, namely insistence of the Turks to continue violating international norms and laws, as if to tell the world: ( say whatever want and II will do whatever I want) by that the turkey is officially accused doing that crimes . In addition, Turkey is violating international humanitarian laws, which are agreed for most of its articles , on one hand and on other hand, Turkey is messing with lofty concepts on which the international community was founded. Which is the duty of the world to fight and prevent discrimination between human beings on the basis of color, race, language or religion, this is what can be seen and distressed in Afrin after militants turned to scene of their crimes, which reflect a deep hatred towards peoples of the region did not hesitate even for a moment to show That hatred.
Where the militants are forcibly displacing residents of the area from their homes in an attempt by Turkish government to complete its project, which aims to bring about demographic change in the region after the displaced militants were brought from Dara’a, Ghouta and Homs. The practices against Yazidin Kurds in Afrin are evidence of the government’s intentions to expel them from their villages to confiscate their property and to destroy their places of worship and heritage, not to mention killing of innocent civilians, women, men and children, as well as looting, confiscation of property and land, thefts and daily clashes between armed men Turkey is sparing no effort to implement its project aimed at obliterating and altering the city of Afrin and its Kurdish villages by changing names of towns, villages, streets and squares and replacing them with Turkish names in an attempt to remove the Kurdish character from the region, and also directed by the Turkish governor in Hatay city to deal with Turkish language as an official language in addition to Arabic language through replacement of official documents with new documents issued, to stabilize the Turkish character in all parts of the northern Syrian occupied by the Turkish army.
All these violations amount to the level of war crimes and humanitarian crimes under international law will not be subject to statute of limitations and will not escape perpetrators of sanctions.
Cases documented by name, photographs and tellers do not account for 30% of volume of violations taking place on the ground. Arab settlers are also taking part in the attacks on the Syrian armed forces, in the seizure of civilian houses, the refusal to evacuate them, harvesting of their lands and reaping of their crops and trees. They are considered participants in these crimes and will bear their legal and moral consequences.
These daily crimes against civilians are carried out under the eyes and sometimes shared by Turkish forces and they undoubtedly show the lack of law and order and the practice of large-scale criminal acts by Turkey’s armed groups such as robbery, intimidation, torture, violence, murder, extortion, ransom and so on.
Afrin area before the Turkish attack was stable and a suitable place for thousands of people fleeing from fighting in Aleppo, Idlib and other provinces. Today, the security situation has become difficult and has not been less than 250 thousand. Perhaps intensity of the fighting, violence and chaos in the region has increased significantly with the arrival of more opposition fighters from Damascus countryside such as Corps of Islam and Army of Islam and others as they are rival factions moved their conflicts to the region in addition to previous differences between Ahrar Sham and Al sham corps , Suleiman Shah and Sultan Murad and Hamzah brigade and others.
The Center for Documentation of Violations in northern Syria demands that Turkey and its armed groups loyal to it in Afrin abide by international humanitarian law and fulfill their duties and protect the rights of civilians in the region. On the top these rights have the right to life, security and freedom of movement.
