A letter from civil rights and media organizations to the Council of Europe and the European Court of Human Rights regarding its position on Turkey's crimes in Syria
Mrs. Marija Pejčivonić Burić, Secretary General of the Council of Europe, Mr. Robert Ragnar Spano, President of the European Court of Human Rights, Ladies and Gentlemen, Representatives of the Council of Europe and the European Court of Human Rights, Since the start of the Turkish military operations in the Kurdish-specific areas in northern Syria, the region has turned into a hotbed of all forms of human rights violations. After Turkey occupied those areas and tightened its control over them, it, along with its affiliated factions (the Syrian National Army, which is linked as a military body to the Syrian Coalition for Revolutionary and Opposition Forces), prevented displaced civilians from returning to their homes and practiced theft, looting, plundering, armed robbery, confiscating and burning property and crops, burning forests, forcibly kidnapping civilians and arbitrarily arresting them. It also practiced killing, torture, looting, destroying and stealing antiquities, as well as destroying and assaulting religious shrines, cemeteries and cultural symbols. It also suppressed freedoms, and worst of all, it embarked on practices of forcibly changing the demographic composition of the region in order to erase its Kurdish specificity and character. It has committed many other violations and crimes, most of which amount to war crimes, crimes against humanity, ethnic cleansing, and genocide. All or some of this is proven and confirmed by reports from governmental and non-governmental organizations such as Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and the reports of the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Syria.
