Afrin… The numbers are imaginary, al-Amshat imposes new taxes on the Kurdish civilians

ARK News… While the Syrian Opposition Coalition claims to activate the "Grievance Redress" committees in the Afrin region in Syrian Kurdistan with the aim of returning property and stolen items to their real owners, the armed factions impose heavy taxes on Kurdish farmers and peasants.

ARK News obtained information from its sources in Shiye town. They confirmed that this year al-Amshat militiamen imposed exorbitant sums of money in US dollars on Kurdish farmers. The taxes are as follows:

1- $8 for each fruitful or non-fruitful tree belonging to the forcibly displaced person in al-Shahba or absent (refugee) managed by a person who is responsible for it.

2- $ 2 for each fruitful or non-fruitful tree belonging to a person in the area. Note that they seized all property belonging to PYD officials. And all their imports belong to al Amshat.

The sources added: These taxes are except for the 15% percentage that belongs to the local councils and factions, noting that this percentage was in effect during the past seasons as well, while the aforementioned taxes are new, after a complete survey of agricultural lands, in the villages under the control of al-Amshat. The number of trees was estimated at more than 4 million olive trees out of 18 million trees in the whole region.

For its part, the Human Rights Organization in Afrin confirmed: “The armed militiamen of the Sultan Suleiman Shah faction, led by the so-called Muhammad al-Jassim, nicknamed Abu Amsha, who controls over the village of Qarmitlq of the Shiye town, on Saturday 05/12/2020, imposed on the citizen Fakhri Rifaat Khalil, about 58 years old an amount of 14 thousand US dollars due to his harvesting of olives and investing in the property of Sheikh Suleiman's Khalil family, who were forcibly displaced in al-Shahba area.

The organization added: The faction also seized the fields of the citizen Akash Baglaro, and reaped about 150 Shawwal of olives whose home furniture was stolen a while ago and fled to Lebanon, as well as seizing the property of the citizen Muhammad Rashid Dawoud, known as the (Tawoud) family, and collecting an amount a sum of $ 2000 from the citizen Hanif Baglaro by force of arms, due to the pound obtained on behalf of the owner Muhammad Rashid Dawoud.

Al-Amshat militiamen control the center of Shiye town and dozens of its villages in addition to the villages of Mabata town, and the name of al-Amshat is associated with committing the most horrific types of violations in the villages under their control, such as the case of Ahmed Sheikho, deputy head of the local council who was killed under torture in one of their headquarters in the village of Qarmitlq, as well as the case of the woman the Arab settler woman, Israa Khalil, who was raped, in addition to the rape of one of the wives of one of the gunmen within the faction. Despite the confirmation of these crimes against the leader of the faction, Muhammad Jassim Abu Amsha, he was not held accountable, on the contrary, the darkness and tyranny of his power over defenseless civilians in the region increased.

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