US calls on Turkey to secure release of Kurdish man held in Afrin

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – The United States’ religious freedom watchdog on Friday called on Turkey to secure the release of a Kurdish teacher held by militias in Afrin, northwest Syria. The teacher is reportedly accused of apostasy. 

The US Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) “fears for the safety of Afrin, Syria resident Radwan Muhammad, who a TFSA [Free Syrian Army] faction has reportedly detained & charged [with] apostasy. USCIRF calls on Turkey to intervene, order its allies to release Radwan, & prevent them from committing such acts,” read a tweet from the commission.

Turkish-backed Syrian militias seized control of the mainly Kurdish Afrin region in Syria’s northwest in 2018. They have been accused of carrying out abuses against the local population. 

Muhammad and his wife Jannat were long time converts from Islam to Christianity, according to a statement by Afrin’s Human Rights Organization submitted to Rudaw English. Jannat died in late July, but the militants prevented Muhammad from preparing his wife’s body for burial, saying she was an infidel. Angry, Muhammad said he too was a Christian. 

The militants accused Muhammad of apostasy and detained him on July 30. He has not been heard from since, according to the rights group. 

If convicted of apostasy, Muhammad could be executed, warned Pastor Nihad Hassan, a native of Afrin but currently leading a Kurdish church in Lebanon. 

“We are extremely worried about Radwan’s life and wellbeing,” Hassan told the UK-based Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW).

The pastor believes Mohammad is being held at the headquarters of the Failaq al-Sham militia in Afrin. 

CSW’s Chief Executive Mervyn Thomas said, “We also urge the Turkish authorities to intervene by restraining the various Islamist Militia groups functioning under its command, and to immediately bring to an end all forms of violence and human rights abuses in the areas they control.”

Afrin was under the control of Kurdish forces from the start of the Syrian uprising in 2011 until March 2018 when Turkey and its Syrian proxies occupied the Kurdish enclave. Months after the Turkish invasion, Amnesty International reported that “Afrin residents are enduring widespread human rights violations, mostly at the hands of Syrian armed groups equipped and armed by Turkey.”  

“Violations include arbitrary detentions, enforced disappearances and confiscation of property and looting to which Turkey’s armed forces have turned a blind eye. Some of these groups, and Turkish armed forces themselves, have also taken over schools, disrupting the education of thousands of children,” added their August 2018 report. 

The Afrin’s Human Rights Organization said accusations of apostasy are “another excuse [militias] use to commit crime in Afrin.”

In Turkey’s more recent October 2019 offensive against Kurdish-led forces in northeastern Syria, large numbers of civilians were displaced and the USCIRF warned Ankara was relocating Syrian refugees from other areas of the country in “religious, ethnic, and cultural replacement.”  

It called on the US to designate Syria a “country of particular concern” for “engaging in systematic, ongoing, and egregious violations of religious freedom.”