Syrian Kurds protest 'undemocratic' PYD policies in Amuda

Hundreds of people took to the streets of Amuda to protest the Syrian PKK affiliate Democratic Union Party's (PYD) "unlawful" and "undemocratic" policies in the province and the region.Amuda, a province on the Turkish-Syrian border, is under PYD control. Fed up with the PYD's oppression, many people flocked to the streets to make their voices heard.

According to reports prepared by observatory groups, the PYD and its armed People's Protection Units (YPG) commit human rights violations where they are dominant.

The PYD committed significant human rights violations in north and northeastern Syria, including "ethnic cleansing massacres," since the withdrawal of government forces in 2012, according to a report published in mid-January by the London-based Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR).

The PYD is the Syrian affiliate of the PKK, which is listed as a terrorist organization by Turkey, the EU and United States. Since taking over remote regions of northern and northeastern Syria from DAESH, the report says the PYD and Kurdish Self-Management (KSM) forces have committed major human rights violations, including extrajudicial killings, enforced displacement, arbitrary arrests and disappearances along with other violations against women, children and media personnel. According to the report, the PYD has sought to ethnically cleanse towns under its control that were mostly inhabited by Arabs. Three massacres that took place in four villages in al-Hasakah resulted in the deaths of 91 civilians, including 17 children and seven women, the report says.

The SNHR said that KSM forces arbitrarily arrested no fewer than 1,651 people, including 111 children, since the beginning of the uprising in Syria in early 2011. Among them was Affan Jomaa al-Aboush, 16, whose body, which showed signs of torture, was found near a KSM military checkpoint on Dec. 17, 2014, five days after KSM forces arrested him at his home.

According to a U.N. report Paulo Sergio Pinheiro presented to the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva in September 2015, "Following the YPG's retaking of the previously ISIS- [DAESH] controlled areas of Tal Abyad in early July and villages in the Tel Tamer region of al-Hasakah, YPG fighters reportedly looted houses belonging to Arab villagers. … The commission has always reported on violence committed by the YPG in previous reports."

according to an Amnesty International report released on Sept. 7, using the pretext that the people they arrest fight for DAESH, the PYD-led autonomous administration in northern Syria has been unlawfully detaining and pressuring peaceful critics and civilians.