Protests continue in northeast Syria over alleged discrimination and harassment of Arab residents by the local Kurdish administration.
Syria Direct reports on the latest rallies and messages after a raid last week by the US-supported, Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces on a home in eastern Deir ez-Zor Province.
The operation, supported by US-led coalition helicopters, resulted in eight deaths, several injuries, and two arrests.
Members of the ‘Ugaydat tribe demanded “an immediate stop to all arbitrary arrests” and the release of residents arrested on “pre-fabricated” suspicions of affiliation with the Islamic State and pro-Turkish factions.
But an SDF source said the raid targeted an ISIS sleeper cell in al-Shuhayl with the arrests of an Islamic State emir and the deaths of a group of “armed individuals”.
Similar protests among the area’s Arab population followed a raid last month in which six people were killed.
Discrimination?
There have been recurrent protests in eastern Deir ez-Zor for months, mainly by Arab residents, over claimed discrimination. SDF guard posts have been burned and roads blocked.
Since autumnn 2015 the SDF, supported by US warplanes and forces, have gradually pushed the Islamic State out of northern and eastern Syria. ISIS’s last major position, Baghouz near the Iraq border, was captured in March.
Kurdish factions set up local councils for autonomous administration in the Kobani and Cezire cantons. Critics say the councils have little authority within a structure dominated by the Syrian Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD) and its YPG militia.
Activists say residents, especially Arab communities, have seen little in restoration of services and provision of aid.
“Mohammed”, an activist in Deir ez-Zor using a pseudonym for fear of reprisal, asserted:
The SDF only cares about the military aspect of things. The civilian factor has been neglected in the Arab areas.
In terms of services, there is discrimination. Electricity, education, local councils, in most of our areas there aren’t any of these things. The SDF is still working on repairing the one water pumping station here, in addition to the electricity station. Most of the bakeries in our areas are out of service. People rely on generators and the parts of the electrical grid we have repaired ourselves.
Arab members of local governing and military councils have complained that “the majority” of their positions are “for show only”.
Fawza Yousif, a co-president of the Autonomous Administrations Executive Council, defended the Kurdish-led system:
“The councils were formed under emergency conditions…so there is a need to re-think their level of representation and competency. Our primary principle is representation from all groups on the councils, in addition to competency.”
She denied that the Arab population are being marginalized.
Instead, Yousif asserted that disruptive parties are trying to “concretize the cleavages” between different groups who actually “complement each other”.
