Discovery of illegal prison beckons new scrutiny of Turkish-backed forces in Afrin
ERBIL, Kurdistan Region — The discovery of an illegal prison at the Afrin headquarters of a Turkish-backed armed force has added to a mounting list of accusations of unchecked lawlessness in opposition-controlled areas of Syria.
A video published by Aleppo Today TV, an opposition-leaning Syrian broadcaster, appeared to show a group of at least eight women in the custody of the security forces at what was described by local sources to Rudaw English as a former police station in Afrin, currently being used as a headquarters by the Hamza Division of the Turkish-backed Syrian National Army (SNA).
"The women were in a pitiful state, which no laws, norms or human values would find acceptable," read a statement signed by a number of human rights organizations outside Syria denouncing "abhorrent actions and abuses committed by the Syrian armed factions."
Those detained at the site were "suspected of collaborating with the PKK," a spokesperson for the SNA told Rudaw English.
Arch-enemy of the SNA's benefactor Turkey, the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) has been at war with the Turkish state for decades, and is ideologically aligned with Kurdish-led forces who controlled Afrin before being ousted by Turkey-backed fighters.
"However, it's not an excuse that the detainees had a security and military case with the PKK, because there is no judicial authority for any military faction and they should not have the right to imprison anyone," Hisham Eskief, Deputy Political Officer in the SNA told Rudaw English.
According to voice messages shared by a military officer of the Hamza Division, who requested anonymity to ensure his safety, the women were being held by "military police” at the headquarters for "one or two years." He also claimed that three women have now been released.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) reported Wednesday that at least one woman has now been released from custody.
The detainees “have been arrested and investigated in an unlawful way, because whoever arrested them should have admitted them to the military judiciary and public security offices," Eskief told Rudaw English.
Eskief described the detention as “an overstep by members of the Hamza Brigade," adding that at least one person has been arrested and that the SNA is conducting an investigation.
Revelations that the previously-unknown black site was being used to hold female prisoners came as an accidental discovery, when fighting between rival SNA factions erupted into a full-blown street battle, and gunmen stormed the brigade’s headquarters.
Inter-faction fighting sprung after a squabble over money between a refugee shopkeeper and a member of the SNA's Hamza Division on Thursday rapidly escalated into murder.
A group of armed men from the Hamza Division visited a shop on Raju Street in downtown Afrin, whose owner had a history with one of the armed men dating back to life in their shared hometown of Ghouta, in rural Damascus. The brigade member tried to take some items without paying, and in the resulting scuffle shot the shopkeeper and his young son.
Retaliation from friends of the shop owner, also from Ghouta and part of a smaller, rival faction to the Hamza Brigade, spiraled into a full-blown battle lasting for hours that left six civilians and three fighters dead, SOHR reported.
An witness who was two blocks away from the battle told Rudaw English that the scene quickly transformed from quiet into an eruption of violence: "I heard a flurry of bullets firing into the sky, and within minutes, pickup trucks arrived carrying more people to join in the fight," said the witness, who wanted to remain anonymous.
The battle led to the Hamza Division being pushed out of their headquarters in Afrin, and to the discovery that the military facility was being used as a women's prison.
The day after the bloodshed, Afrin residents held demonstrations against the security forces in the area, and several Syrian human rights groups have called for accountability for violations committed by the Turkey-backed factions.
Opposition officials have issued apologies and promised an investigation into those responsible for the clashes.
"We, the leadership of the Syrian National Army, condemn these shameful actions and vow that the language of the gun will not prevail," Eskief told Rudaw English.
The incident piles further scrutiny onto the Syrian National Army (SNA), an umbrella grouping formed of scattered anti-Assad rebels equipped, trained and bankrolled by Turkey who wrested control of Afrin from the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in March 2018.
Turkish-backed armed factions have been accused of "blatant war crimes" by human rights monitors, who have repeatedly raised the alarm over Turkey’s failure to account for the armed factions’ violations.
An investigation published by the UN Commission of Inquiry on Syria in March 2020 found “reasonable grounds to believe that Syrian National Army fighters perpetrated the war crime of murder and repeatedly committed the war crime of pillaging."
A March 2019 report by the same body assessing the situation in Afrin under opposition rule pointed to “credible allegations” pointed to torture and ill-treatment “targeting individuals of Kurdish origin, including activists openly critical of armed groups and those perceived to be so."
SNA members have rarely been held to account for the violations they’ve committed against the civilians they rule over.
"Turkey has an ethical responsibility" for holding forces on its payroll accountable for violations, Omer Ozkizilcik, analyst at the SETA Foundation, a pro-government Turkish think tank, told Rudaw English.
"There are cases like Turkey cutting the salaries for some SNA groups or taking someone from his position like the police chief of Afrin due to crimes," he said, but Turkey avoids involvement "in most of the cases,” to “support Syrians to solve the matters by themselves."