{"id":4800,"date":"2024-05-11T15:14:52","date_gmt":"2024-05-11T13:14:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nlka.net\/eng\/?p=4800"},"modified":"2024-05-11T15:14:52","modified_gmt":"2024-05-11T13:14:52","slug":"uscirf-highlights-religious-freedom-in-sdf-held-syria","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nlka.net\/eng\/uscirf-highlights-religious-freedom-in-sdf-held-syria\/","title":{"rendered":"USCIRF Highlights Religious Freedom in SDF-Held Syria"},"content":{"rendered":"

The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) recently released their 2024 Annual Report<\/a><\/span> on May 1st, underscoring that the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES), supported by its Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), continues \u201cto highlight religious freedom as a governing principle.\u201d<\/p>\n

This is in stark contrast to religious freedom conditions in Syria under the Syrian government, or non-state actors like Hay\u2019at Tahrir al-Sham and Turkish-backed armed groups, the report shows.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile the government of President Bashar al-Assad committed a range of other human rights abuses, its violations of freedom of religion or belief were generally political and administrative in nature,\u201d the report said.<\/p>\n

\u201cNonstate entities in conflict with the Assad government, including the U.S.-designated terrorist organization Hay\u2019at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and several Turkish-supported Syrian Islamist opposition groups (TSOs), were the primary drivers of severe religious freedom violations in Syria,\u201d it said.<\/p>\n

Furthermore, the report noted that the \u201cSDF led missions to locate and rescue Yazidi women and girls whom ISIS kidnapped from Iraq as part of its 2014 genocide. Almost 2,700 women and girls remained missing, with an unidentified number presumed still in Syrian detainee camps and ISIS enclaves,\u201d according to the report.<\/p>\n

The report also called on the U.S. government to support religious freedom in Syria by fully implementing General License No. 22 in areas the AANES governs and encouraged the international inclusion of the AANES in a political solution to the Syrian conflict.<\/p>\n

Additionally, it called for assisting the efforts of local partners to ascertain the whereabouts of \u201ckidnapped and missing Yazidi women and girls; and taking diplomatic action in multilateral forums to facilitate the flow of humanitarian and reconstruction aid and ensure its effective disbursement to vulnerable communities, including religious minorities.\u201d<\/p>\n

Also this year, USCIRF for the first time recommended putting Syria on the U.S. State Department’s Special Watch List, \u201cgiven that the government\u2019s violations of religious freedom have evolved to become more political and administrative in nature in recent years.\u201d<\/p>\n

It also called on the US to redesignate HTS as an \u201centity of particular concern\u201d and impose targeted sanctions on additional HTS principals and the leadership of Turkish-backed Syrian opposition groups for being \u201cresponsible for violations of religious freedom by freezing those individuals\u2019 assets and\/or barring their entry into the United States under human rights-related financial and visa authorities, citing specific religious freedom violations.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, it did not call for sanctions on AANES or SDF leaders for violations of religious freedom.<\/p>\n

Also in 2019, USCIRF\u2019s Annual Report mentioned<\/a><\/span> that \u201cthe Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES) maintained control of the rest of the northeast and continued to uphold its commitment to providing for a relatively high degree of religious freedom and other civil rights in areas under its authority.\u201d<\/p>\n

The latest<\/a><\/span> U.S. State Department Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 2023, released in April, also mentions that the DAANES \u201cgenerally controlled the political and governance landscape in the northeast while allowing for Arab and other ethnic and religious community representation in local governance councils.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNortheast Syria is doing well in religious freedom because it is a real secular government. There is no domination of any religious groups in society. Kurds have been persecuted by Arab rulers for decades but they still honor their duty to protect religious minorities,\u201d Fabrice Balanche, a professor at the University of Lyon and associate researcher at the Washington Institute who has regularly traveled to northeast Syria, told The Kurdish Center for Studies.<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cAreas under AANES are the only areas in Syria that have positive religious freedom conditions. The fact that parts of these areas used to be under the ISIS Caliphate just 6 years ago is what makes it especially noteworthy. Northeast Syria has such positive religious freedom conditions because they have built governance based on equality for all, regardless of ethnicity, religion, or gender. It really is stunning.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2014 Nadine Maenza,
\nPresident of the International Religious Freedom Secretariat and former Chair of the USCIRF<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\"\"
Then USCIRF Vice Chair Nadine Maenza at a press conference in Qamishli (October 2020), where she spoke about<\/a><\/span> how it was \u201cheartbreaking\u201d to visit with Yezidis and Christians who had formerly fled ISIS terrorism and were then forced again to flee the Turkish invasions of Afrin and Ser\u00ea Kaniy\u00ea.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Maenza\u00a0also mentioned that northeast Syria \u201cis one of the few places in the region where Christian converts are welcome and treated as equal citizens.\u201d<\/p>\n

For instance, in April 2019, an Evangelical Christian church for Muslim converts was opened<\/a><\/span> in the Syrian city of Koban\u00ea.<\/p>\n

Moreover, in April 2024, the AANES handed<\/a><\/span> over religious facilities to the Christians in the city of Raqqa in northern Syria and the Raqqa Civil Council and the Armenian Social Council reopened<\/a><\/span> the Armenian Martyrs’ Church of Raqqa in May 2022. Also in February 2024, an office of the High Committee for Real Estate was opened<\/a><\/span>, whose mission is to \u201cprotect\u201d the properties of Christian owners.<\/p>\n

Moreover, the Social Contract of the Democratic Autonomous Administration of the North and East Syria Region (DAANES) in 2023 mentions the importance of \u201cpreserving all cultural, religious, and ideological identities.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the diverse region of North and East Syria, the DAANES declares religious and ethnic minorities\u2019 right to practice their culture and beliefs freely, openly, and autonomously to be a fundamental aspect of its political project,\u201d Samantha Teal, a researcher from the Syria-based Rojava Information Centre (RIC), told The Kurdish Center for Studies.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis follows both the marginalization of certain minorities\u2014particularly Christians and Yazidis\u2014at the hands of the Assad government, and the string of bloody atrocities ISIS conducted against members of minority religious and ethnic groups.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nevertheless, Teal said the DAANES\u2019 ambitions to bring peace and stability to the region\u2019s historically oppressed communities\u2014as outlined in NES\u2019 Social Contract\u2014may only have been realized to some extent, but the efforts undertaken there stand in stark contrast to the situation in Syria\u2019s northern Turkish-occupied regions.<\/p>\n

\u201cTurkiye\u2019s 2018 and 2019 invasions into NES saw mass displacement of local Kurdish, Yazidi, and Christian residents, most of whom have not returned to their home regions that are controlled by the Syrian National Army and rife with human rights abuses,\u201d Teal added.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe SNA has systematically targeted religious minorities, including by destroying Yazidi monuments and cemeteries and forcing Yazidis to convert to Islam. The DAANES stands out as a leading proponent of religious freedom not just in Syria but in the wider Middle East,\u201d Teal concluded.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) recently released their 2024 Annual Report on May 1st, underscoring that the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES), supported by its Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), continues \u201cto highlight religious freedom as a governing principle.\u201d This is in stark contrast to religious freedom conditions in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":685,"featured_media":4806,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_crdt_document":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"jnews_post_split":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[212,61],"tags":[193,816,818,819,48,725,820,817],"ppma_author":[768],"class_list":["post-4800","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-history-culture","category-slider","tag-aanes","tag-hts","tag-nadine-maenza","tag-northeast-syria","tag-rojava","tag-sdf","tag-united-states-commission-on-international-religious-freedom","tag-uscirf"],"authors":[{"term_id":768,"user_id":685,"is_guest":0,"slug":"wladimir-van-wilgenburg","display_name":"Wladimir van Wilgenburg","avatar_url":{"url":"https:\/\/nlka.net\/eng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/Wladimir-2.jpg","url2x":"https:\/\/nlka.net\/eng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/Wladimir-2.jpg"},"0":null,"1":"","2":"","3":"","4":"","5":"","6":"","7":"","8":""}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nlka.net\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4800","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nlka.net\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nlka.net\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nlka.net\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/685"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nlka.net\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4800"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"https:\/\/nlka.net\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4800\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4828,"href":"https:\/\/nlka.net\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4800\/revisions\/4828"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nlka.net\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4806"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nlka.net\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4800"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nlka.net\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4800"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nlka.net\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4800"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nlka.net\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=4800"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}