Human rights report reveals PYD’s secret prisons

Human rights report reveals PYD’s secret prisons
A human rights report revealed the presence of secret detention centers and prisons belonging to the Democratic Union Party (PYD) – the Syrian offshoot of the PKK – in Afrin in northern Syria.

The report, issued by the Democracy Center for Human Rights in Kurdistan, stated that the PYD militia committed atrocities against its opponents in Afrin, referring to the killings, arrests and kidnappings.

The report added that these crimes against civilians amount to “crimes against humanity,” as well as the suppression of peaceful demonstrations and the arrest of hundreds of Kurdish activists and their incarceration in secret detentions.

Secret Prisons

The report described, and according to Rojava News, that the worst situation a political prisoner may suffer from is to be transferred to a secret prison, especially the so-called black prison, pointing out that the headquarters of the secret prisons is a former Assad prison located on top of Lilyon mountain in Qybar town in the countryside of the city. The PYD turned it into their own secret detention center in which human rights violating investigations and torture of detainees takes place.

The report indicated that the number of political prisoners has become too large to accommodate them all in the PYD’s secret prisons so the Kurdish militia resorted to using the caves in the region as secret prisons after adding amendments to the interior shape and distribution of the rooms and allocating the solitary rooms in the corners.

Central Prison

According to the testimonies of former detainees, all the secret prisons located within the borders of Afrin city and villages around the city fall under the control of the People’s Protection Units (YPG) – the armed military wing of PYD – and not the Asayish – the Kurdish secret police – since the latter is directly responsible for maintaining the non-secret prisons that are located in the center of the city, the central prisons.

The Democracy Center for Human Rights in Kurdistan urged the PYD in its report for the immediate release of all political prisoners in the Asayish prisons as well as all those who have vanished in the secret prisons of the YPG. 

The report also demanded the closure of all secret prisons and to allow the detainees to undertake a fair trial where legal conditions required are available according to the standards and principles adopted by the United Nations and relevant conventions.

In addition, the report demanded that each individual who was arrested for political reasons related to his/her views to be compensated materially and morally.

The report also called for an end to the political arrests in Syria and urged the PYD to allow for the return of exiles and to refrain from prosecuting them. 

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