Mr. Antonio Guterres, Secretary-General of the United Nations
Mrs. Michelle Bachelet, High Commissioner for Human Rights
Mr. Paulo Pinheiro, Chairman of the Commission of Inquiry on Syria
After violations and crimes against defenseless civilians in the Afrin region attained their most dramatic and horrible intensity, and it began to offend their human dignity, without the slightest consideration or respect for religious and international laws, by the Syrian armed factions that the Turkish intelligence services unleashed them to commit all the violations, including the moral ones against the Syrian Kurdish residents of Afrin, men and women, elderly and children, with the aim of forcing them to leave their homes and be displaced, in order to complete Turkey’s plans to change the demography of the region and obliterate its Kurdish identity.
After revealing the unethical crimes committed by these mercenary factions, especially against Kurdish girls and women, and the repeated murders committed against the elderly. Yesterday, a number of women who were unjustly kidnapped since a long time were found in the basements and detention camps of Al-Hamzeh square, which were broken into and controlled by Al-Ghouta settlers and Ahrar al-Sham factions. The women were in a pitiful state, which no laws, customs or societal values would accept.
That is why we, the civil and legal organizations signed below, address you urgently the necessity of:
- Forming a committee to investigate the facts related to crimes and violations committed in Afrin and other areas occupied by Turkey on a daily basis in order to document and refer them to the relevant international authorities to put an end to these crimes and hold those committed them accountable
-Exerting more pressure on Turkey to carry out its duties and fulfill its responsibilities as an occupying power in providing security and protection for civilians. - Demanding Turkey to end its illegal military presence in the Syrian areas and exit with its mercenaries and armed factions, and asking the Security Council to put those areas under international protection until a comprehensive political solution to the Syrian problem is found.
5/29/2020
The Signatories:
1- The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights
2- The Kurdish Legal Authority
3- Defense Society for Threatened Peoples-German Branch
4- Kurdish Organization for Human Rights in Syria (DAD)
5- Kurdish Committee for Human Rights (Al-Rased)
6- Violations Documentation Center in northern Syria
7- Mahabad Human Rights Organization (MOHR)
8- The Association for the Defense of Human Rights in Austria
9- The Committee for the Defense of Human Rights in Syria (MAF)
10- Lequlin Center for Legal Studies and Research
11- Yazdina Foundation for Media and Human Rights
12- Syrian Center for Defending Human Rights
13- Human Rights Organization in Syria (MAF)
14- Human Rights Organization-Afrin
15- Afrinpost news network
16- Afrin Media Center
17- Human Rights Defense Initiative-Syria.
18- Human Rights Organization in Al-Jazeera (Upper Mezopotamia).
19- Human Rights Organization in the Euphrates region.
20- Kurdish Association of Heavy in Belgium
