Dutch researcher recounts the horrors of YPG/PKK death threats

Many Western journalists and analysts have unabashedly maintained good relations with the YPG, the Syrian wing of the terrorist group PKK, which operates under the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). They have also written numerous accounts about the Syrian civil war, exaggerating the YPG's role in defeating Daesh. 

However, Rena Netjes, a 56-year-old Dutch researcher, is not so enamoured by the YPG/PKK, having observed and studied its way of functioning from up close. Over the years, she has criticised the group’s pressure tactics, which apparently led to her receiving online threats – including a ‘death certificate’ dated January 18, 2023 – from YPG/PKK supporters. 

Most western nations, including the US and EU, argue that the YPG has no ties with the PKK, which is designated as a terrorist organisation by the West. But Türkiye rejects the West's narrative and insists that the two groups are inter-connected, with the YPG being a part and parcel of the PKK. 

Dutch researchers' findings on the group stand in contrast to what the US and its allies, as well as many Western journalists, have argued about when it came to defending the YPG as an entity independent of the PKK control. 

So why does Netjes have a different take on the YPG, often glamorised by the western media?

The simple answer lies in Netjes’s experience with the group in northern Syria, parts of which have been under YPG/PKK control since the outbreak of the civil war in 2011. 

Unlike many Western pundits, who have portrayed the YPG/PKK rule in northeastern Syria as a “democratic model” for Damascus and other Middle Eastern capitals, Netjes has revealed the suppressive measures of the terror group and described its rule as quite despotic.

“They are definitely not democratic,” she tells TRT World. “Because I bring the reality about this group, the other face, they really don’t like it.” 

She has various reasons for her thinking based on first-account testimonies and observations.  

In the summer of 2015, Netjes, who was then a journalist working for the Dutch public radio station BNR, was relaxing on a beach in Amsterdam. Coincidentally, a couple sitting next to her were from Syria and talking about the evolution of the civil war. They were initially Palestinians from Yarmouk, a district in Damascus where a large refugee camp is located. 

At the time, Netjes was also planning to go to Syria. This coincidental meeting provided a perfect opportunity for her because the couple told her they had two doctor brothers based in Gaziantep, a southeastern Turkish city bordering Syria. The couple told Netjes that their doctor brothers could help her travel to Syria. 

Six months after the beach talk in Amsterdam, Netjes arrived at Gaziantep, meeting the two brothers, who worked for the Independent Doctors Association in the Turkish city. “They introduced me to the area in northern Syria, getting me into contact with [Syrian opposition] commanders,” Netjes says. 

During her conversations with the two doctors, she got a lot of information that was quite different from the Western media’s reports on YPG/PKK. “They told me that one of their colleagues was kidnapped by the YPG/PKK at a checkpoint,” she explains. Over time, she heard more YPG/PKK stories from people who fled Syria to Türkiye. 

While working along the Turkish-Syrian border areas, Netjes saw a woman fleeing from the Aleppo region, apparently trying to escape the Russian and Syrian regime bombing which almost flattened the eastern part of the ancient town, Syria’s second biggest city. But that was not the case. 

“To my surprise, the woman said the YPG fighters had taken her house. I said, ‘what!’. So this is what started for me,” says Netjes, remembering one of her crucial conversations with a Syrian Arab refugee from Tal Rifaat, a strategic town close to Aleppo. 

During the Aleppo fighting in 2016, the entire Arab-majority Tal Rifaat population was expelled in a coordinated military operation by Russia, the Syrian regime, and the YPG/PKK group from Afrin. At that time, Afrin was under the PKK affiliate’s control before the Turkish Operation Olive Branch in 2018. Tal Rifaat is still under YPG/PKK rule. 

“First, I did not know the Tal Rifaat story, but I met more people who were expelled. Then, so gradually, I started to understand the story,” she says, referring to YPG/PKK’s human rights violations, which have also been reported by some prominent rights groups. 

The more she learned about YPG/PKK activities in northern Syria, the stronger her critique became against the terror group, angering them greatly. 

“They rule Hasaka province with an iron fist,” she says. “In (totally Arab) Deir Ezzor province, they can’t because the Arab tribes don’t let them,” she says, adding that prominent Arab tribes like the Ogeidat and the Baggara have been recently protesting against the YPG/PKK rule.

Not only Arabs but also Syrian Kurds complain about the YPG/PKK rule, she says. After the online threats against her became public, some Syrian Kurds from Afrin sent her pictures of their cars being shot at by YPG/PKK terrorists. “They tried to shoot my car 20 times. Don’t be afraid. Just go on!” one of them told her. “Syrian Kurds have been living in this for years,” she says. 

But why did she start receiving threats from the YPG/PKK now? 

Anxiety in Europe

Netjes sees several reasons behind the recent online threats against her. 

One reason she believes might be related to increased anxiety across Europe against the YPG/PKK. Frederike Geerdink, a pro-PKK Dutch journalist from the eastern Netherlands like Netjes, recently reported that European states are now arresting PKK members and are going “more after them”, according to Netjes. 

“Kurdish activists in Europe are experiencing increasing pressure from all sides,” wrote Geerdink in late December, referring to pro-YPG/PKK groups in the continent. She exemplified Germany’s ban on YPG and PKK flags and police raids against PKK-affiliated groups, showing how governments in European countries are “increasingly” against them. 

“It seems to be an uptick [in Europe] against the YPG/PKK. At least, I could say that they feel less comfortable in Europe now,” she says. 

Some recent developments show that providing YPG/PKK with a safe haven in Europe might not be a safe option for the West. Sweden and Finland, the two Scandinavian states seeking NATO membership, have increased pressure on YPG/PKK supporters in their countries. Türkiye, a NATO member, indicated that it would veto their entrance to the alliance if the two Western states continued to allow YPG/PKK activities in their territories. 

Recently Paris witnessed violent pro-YPG/PKK protests leading to the destruction of properties and injury to French police officials. The so-called demonstrations broke out after a French far-right attacker killed three people. While the French state appears to continue its appeasement of pro-YPG/PKK activities even after the protests, the violent demonstrations have raised eyebrows in other Western capitals regarding the terror group’s presence in Europe. 

Critical research from experts like Netjes, showing YPG/PKK’s brutal tactics in different areas in Syria, might have also escalated anxiety across YPG/PKK supporters in the West and pushed some of them to resort to desperate acts like the recent online threats. 

“I believe these threats [against me] come from Europe,” she says, adding that the language of threats suggests that they did not originate in Syria. “I talked to some Syrians. They also think similarly,” she says. 

Another reason she might be targeted could be related to “an uptick” in attacks from YPG/SDF-controlled areas on mainly civilian areas like Azaz and Mare in northwestern Syria under Syrian National Army (SNA) control, an opposition group backed by Türkiye. 

Türkiye has also recently signalled that Ankara might launch another cross-border operation to prevent YPG/PKK attacks against civilians along the Turkish-Syrian border. 

Lastly, she refers to her recent clash with Katrin Langensiepen, a German member of the European Parliament, who recently praised the YPG/PKK by saying that they are “building a democratic structure”. 

“I helped her get to northeastern Syria because she could not manage with her team. I helped her with my Kurdish contacts, who feared she was pro-PKK. But she said she is not,” Netjes recounts. 

To Netjes’s surprise, during a European Parliament speech, Langensiepen described the YPG/PKK rule as a “democratic structure”, angering the Dutch researcher. 

“I called her out for that statement on Twitter. I said I was happy to learn about democratic structures. But what is democratic about [YPG], I asked. Kidnapping children, killing and jailing opponents, not allowing any elections and free media and so on?” she says. 

In the end, a number of reasons ranging from her critical research to rising anxiety across Europe against YPG/PKK might lead pro-PKK supporters to target her, she says.  “Definitely, the YPG/PKK see me as a very annoying voice,” she adds.