MSDUnder the slogan “Afrin is between the Turkish occupation and international interests”
The Dialogue Forum was held in Barkhadan camp for Afrin displaced in al-Shahbaa area, north of Aleppo city on May 10th, 2022 under the auspices of the Syrian Democratic Council, Al-Shahbaa Afrin center and the Human Rights Organization in Afrin, Syria.
The participants, who numbered one hundred and fifteen human rights and political figures from inside and outside of Syria, shed light on the crimes and violations of the Turkish forces and the Syrian armed opposition factions loyal to them in Afrin and the connection of the policy of the Turkish state with international and regional interests and policies. A lot of illegal violations have occurred against the people of Afrin, especially the issue of the demographic change that happened and still continues until now, definitely after the declarations of Turkish officials to return Syrian refugees to these areas in the same time of happening the ethnic cleansing in Afrin and targeting religious groups as well as the forcibly displacement of native people by violent means where these crimes were considered as war crimes and crimes against humanity including murder, rape, sexual assaults, destruction, robbery the private and public property, destruction of hospitals and infrastructure and targeting the archeological landmarks. The work was done to document human rights violations legally and document a lot of information about the perpetrators of these crimes and their direct connection with the Turkish government, where the participants came up with several recommendations and demands including:
– Stressing that the Turkish military intervention in Syrian territories is a crime of aggression against the sovereignty of the Syrian state that is a member of the United Nations because it is not based on an international resolution or a Syrian National resolution authorizing it to intervene and it is a clear violation of the items of the Charter of the United Nations and the provisions of the international humanitarian law.
– Call on the Syrian government through the national parties to cancel the Adana agreement between the Syrian state and the Turkish state because of its exploitation by the Turkish state and use it as a pretext to justify its intervention in Syrian territories to continue to expand its occupation project under the pretext of protecting its national security.
– Stopping settlement projects in all occupied areas, especially in the Afrin region, which are supported by the Turkish state through charitable and humanitarian associations (Qatari, Kuwaiti and Palestinian associations) that seek to do the demographic change under the pretext of resettling Syrian refugees.
– Work to end the Turkish occupation of Syrian territories and ensuring the return of the forcibly displaced to their homes and under international auspices.
– Stressing that the crimes committed against civilians, especially women in Afrin, are considered as crimes of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity and work to expose them to be clear according the international community.
– Call on the United Nations to send an International Fact-Finding Committee to the occupied areas in northern Syria to investigate the crimes committed by the Turkish occupation state and the factions affiliated to it and hold them responsible for those practices and violations carried out by those factions.
– Calling on the United Nations and relevant international bodies to assume their legal and moral responsibilities towards the hundreds of thousands of displaced people in Afrin and to consider it as a crime of forced displacement for the purpose of the demographic change and a crime of the ethnic cleansing, which is a war crime according to the Rome Statute in 1998 and refer the perpetrators to the International Criminal Court.
– Communication with international humanitarian workers, academics, researchers and activists to prepare files of violations committed in Afrin and submit them to European international courts and communicate with relatives of victims in Europe and America.
– Communication with the international media and working to expose the crimes committed by Turkey and the armed factions loyal to it, and consider (ENKS) an agent and accomplice to the occupation of Afrin.
– Submitting a memorandum to the secretary-general of the United Nations to convene a session of the UN Security Council in order to condemn the Turkish government in accordance with the evidence, documents and reports issued by international and human rights organizations and international official and non-governmental bodies, which proved the involvement of the Turkish government in supporting and financing terrorist activities in the occupied Syrian areas.
– Considering the eighteenth of March as the International Day of Extermination in Afrin and considering the Turkish state as an occupied state.
– The formation of a local and International Committee to follow up the recommendations and decisions issued by the forum and preparation for the holding of subsequent forums in this regard.
On May 10th, 2022 The Preparatory committee for the forum
