Torture and abduction rife in Kurdish self-administered areas: NGO report

Human rights violations targeting activists, dissidents and political critics are widespread in Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) -controlled areas in Syria, the Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR), said in a report. 

The SDF is dominated by the YPG, a Syrian branch of PKK, an organisation that has been proscribed by the US, EU and Turkey. 

The UK-based NGO has monitored the death toll and human rights violations in Syria since 2011. 

Calling on parties to abide by international human rights law and investigate the matter in public trials, the NGO urged governments that back such forces to put pressure on them to end all offences and establish civil oversight in those areas.

Here are some highlights from the report:

• SDF forces committed various types of human rights violations, including arbitrary arrests, abductions, enforced-disappearances, and torture.

• At least 169 incidents of arbitrary arrests, enforced disappearances in SDF-controlled areas were reported. 72 of those were released but 97 people are still either arrested or forcefully disappeared without  charge.

• Released detainees said that they were not subjected to fair trials and were not allowed to hire lawyers. SDF leaders refused to allow regular family visits.

• Human rights violations also targeted activists, politicians, dissidents, and political critics in SDF-controlled areas in Syria. 

• Poor conditions in detention centres cause diseases to spread as  basic life necessities such as medical care, personal hygiene, ventilation, water and food were lacking. 

• A media activist and reporter, Hussein Liyani, is among those arrested. His family say the SDF administration denied his arrest until July 17 this year.