Maat Foundation launches an "electronic" campaign to support victims of the Turkish intervention in northeastern Syria

Aqil: The campaign aims to monitor the Turkish violations in northern Syria ... and provide support to the victims

Mukhtar: The international community must bear its responsibilities towards the crimes committed by Turkey in northern Syria

Based on the role of civil society in advancing human rights and defending victims of violations committed by governments against peoples, the Maat Foundation for Peace, Development and Human Rights decided to launch an “electronic” campaign today, Monday, February 1, 2021, entitled “The north of Syria is bleeding” to support victims of violations resulting from the intervention Al-Turki and the factions loyal to it in northeastern Syria, especially after the Turkish military incursion killed hundreds of civilians, as well as targeting the main civilian infrastructure, including water pumping stations, dams, power stations and oil fields. This forced nearly 300,000 Syrians to flee due to the violence.

Since the beginning of the Turkish military intervention in northeastern Syria in August 2016, the Turkish government launched 3 military operations on the region, leaving behind the occupation of large areas of Syrian territory in violation of the declaration of the inadmissibility of interference of all kinds in the internal affairs of countries, which was adopted in accordance with United Nations General Assembly Resolution No. 36. 103 / As well as in violation of Article Two of Paragraph 7 of the United Nations Charter, which stipulates non-interference in the affairs of the state of any kind.

During this period, the Turkish forces and the factions loyal to it carried out forced displacement and ethnic cleansing operations against the indigenous population, with the aim of demographic change in the region in order to settle the militant armed factions and their families at the expense of civilian citizens, while the armed factions loyal to Turkey carried out more than 604 extrajudicial killings in violation. Article 3 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, while the number of the Yazidi minority decreased from 35,000 citizens to 1,500 citizens, as a result of ethnic cleansing operations carried out by armed factions in the areas of their concentration in northern Syria.

To achieve the campaign's goal, the Maat Foundation Research Unit team began monitoring all violations committed by the Turkish authorities in northeastern Syria, as well as communicating with a number of victims to provide legal and moral support to them, by submitting complaints to the United Nations special procedures to condemn the violations committed by Turkey against them. Syrian citizens.

Ayman Aqil, head of the Maat Foundation, confirmed that the campaign aims to shed light on the grave violations committed by the Turkish authorities and the armed factions loyal to them against civilian citizens in northern Syria, including confiscation of private property and the destruction and looting of historical sites, in violation of the 1954 Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in The state of armed conflict, as well as intimidation, arbitrary detention, kidnapping, enforced disappearance, and torture practiced by these armed factions with the aim of displacing citizens from their places of residence. Aqil said that he hopes that the campaign that begins today and ends on the 15th of this month, will contribute to the pressure on the Turkish government to stop For the violations it is carrying out in northern Syria. 

In this context, Aqil explained that the armed factions loyal to Turkey seized 250 houses during the year 2020 in the Afrin region, explaining that the armed factions aim to eliminate peaceful coexistence in northern Syria, pointing to the migration of more than 250 Christian families from Afrin regions since the beginning of the Turkish intervention out of fear Those who were subjected to violations at the hands of the hard-line armed factions, while Aqil warned of the continuing policies of obliterating the identity of the armed factions in the areas controlled by the Turkish forces, and in the end, Aqil held the Turkish authorities, as the occupying power, responsible for these violations committed by their allies.

For his part, Muhammad Mukhtar, a researcher at the Maat Foundation, called for the international community to bear its responsibility for the crimes committed by the armed factions of the Turkish government in northeastern Syria, which sometimes amount to war crimes, explaining that there is evidence indicating the use of internationally prohibited weapons by Turkish forces and factions. Cooperating with it during the past four years, in violation of the 1993 Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Manufacture, Stockpiling and Use of Chemical Weapons and on Their Destruction.