Syria: Hasaka Christians accuse PYD of demographic change

Syria: Hasaka Christians accuse PYD of demographic change

Syrian Christian communities living in northern Syria accused the PYD Kurdish militias, of ethnic cleansing, demographic changing and seizing private property belonging to them. 

In a statement published on Friday, the Christians also called upon the international community and the United Nations no to recognize the census results made by the Kurdish group and put an end to the PYD’s transgressions and violations against them in the al-Hasaka.

In previous statements, sixteen Christian minority groups in al-Hasaka, located along the Turkish border, signed a joint statement condemning the PYD for seizing their property after the region was captured from ISIS this summer.

The latest case highlighted the plight of Christian minorities living under the PYD. In a statement published in English by the Assyrian International News Agency (AINA) on Nov. 2, a Christian organization mainly of local Assyrian and Armenian groups in the Qamishli district of Hasakah, called on the PYD to uphold human rights and abandon regulations that have resulted in the confiscation of property belonging to Christians who fled the area.

The statement also condemned forced military conscription by the PYD as “preposterous” and interference in the curriculum offered by private church schools as “unacceptable.”

Amnesty International recently released a report, showing human rights violations by the YPG concerning non-Kurdish inhabitants in areas under their control in northern Syria, including forced displacement and demolishing houses. The Amnesty report said that the crimes committed by the YPG amount to war crimes and that non-Kurdish, mostly Turkmen and Arab, inhabitants of villages in the de facto autonomous Kurdish administration were forced out of their homes.