Konflikten i Syrien

PYD critics silenced
The PKK militia’s new local recruits, including
women, helped the PYD act as
enforcers for Assad. Gunmen suspected of
links to the PYD began assaulting protest
leaders, but Tammo was unperturbed, predicting
in October 2011 that the Assad
regime would soon use its allies to assassinate
non-violent activists. Days later,
Tammo was killed when gunmen stormed
a house he was at in Qamishli. An aide,
Zahida Rashkilo, survived and was smuggled
for treatment in Germany. Other figures
in the Future Movement also fled PYD persecution
to Germany.
Following Tammo’s assassination, a string
of activists who publicly opposed the PYD
were beaten, killed, or disappeared, with
the PYD always denying responsibility. For
example, Radeef Mustafa, a prominent
human rights lawyer and an ally of Tammo,
was forced to flee his hometown of Kobanê
to Turkey after receiving PYD threats in
2011. His son was subsequently beaten in
the town. In January 2012, three brothers
of the Badro family – a prominent clan that
had fallen afoul of the PYD – were killed
in Qamishli after their father repulsed an
apparent YPG incursion into their home
and killed a YPG gunman. Also, dozens of
activists were killed or disappeared in PYDcontrolled
territory in Hasakah and Afrin
between 2012 and 2015, such as Ahmad
Farman Bunjuq, who was killed in a driveby
shooting in Qamishli, and Bahzed
Dorsen, the KDPS head in Malikiya.
Kidnappings and deaths in detention by
the PYD have also been documented. In one
case in early 2015, Suhail al-Nisr, a Germaneducated
Syrian-Arab surgeon from Aleppo,
was kidnapped in Afrin, despite the fact that
he treats Kurdish patients in the region.
Nisr was released after paying a US$50,000
ransom. He said he had spent his two-week
captivity among YPG militiamen in a house
adorned with PYD insignia. In total, the
YPG are suspected of killing at least 30
Kurds opposed to the PYD since 2011.