Kurds Worried War Crimes Accusations Could Ruin Their Image

 Post has been updated- scroll down for info!That is an actual headline to one of the articles I will link below!Note to Kurds in Iraq and Syria: Worried about your image? Don't commit war crimes!I think their image was ruined way back when they mass killed, raped and stole Assyrian property? Maybe that's just me? Perception is everything in this world.  Dam the facts all to hell!I however prefer facts to spin. We're going for facts today! The repeated claims, from a myriad of sources regarding Kurdish abuses, while embroiled in their latest dalliance with the elites, going back minimally a year ago makes very clear the need for pro Kurdish spin doctors hanging about. While reading all news, we see a pattern of abuse emerging and we understand the necessity of spin doctors, spinning, for the NATO/Israeli backed irregular fightersThe NATO benefactor nations have been covering up the Kurdish abuses for some time now-Partners in crime stick together as long as it’s mutually beneficial, which it continues to be.All Canadians witnessed the Kurdish benefactors here in Canada and the US cover up for the Kurd shooting of multiple Canadian soldiers, killing one of them. I don’t hold soldiers in high regard anyway but they have families here. One lost their son at the hands of the Kurdish militias. Would they like to know the truth? I would thinks so. Will they get the truth? No.The Canadian government swept this under the rug very quickly. They covered up for the Kurdish militias so the spin/meme could continue on promoting the Kurdish people and their fighters as victims and/or honourable warriors. Despite truth, fact and reality painting a very different pictureWatchdog accuses Syria's Kurdish Party of AbusesJune 2014

 An international rights group said Thursday that Kurdish authorities ruling three enclaves in northeastern Syria have committed abuses, including arbitrary arrests of political opponents, and have failed to address abductions and unresolved killings in areas under their control.Human Rights Watch said in a new 107-page report that the Kurdish Democratic Union Party also has used children in its armed wing known as the People's Protection Units.

Human Rights Watch documented several cases in which the PYD-run police, known as the Asayish, have arrested members of Kurdish opposition parties because of their political activity. In some cases, Kurdish opposition members have been convicted in apparently unfair trials, on trumped-up charges of being involved in a bomb attack, the report said.

Kurds terrorizing their brethren.

At least nine political opponents of the PYD have been killed or have disappeared over the past two and a half years in areas the party partially or fully controlled, the group said. Security forces controlled by the PYD have carried out mass arrests in raids that followed bombings.Human Rights Watch said its report was based on interviews with former detainees, local lawyers and activists. The PYD gave Human Rights Watch access to the three areas under their control, but the rights groups said it only visited one of them because of security concerns. In February, HRW researchers visited two prisons under the party's control and had unrestricted access to officials, prisoners, and others.

In addition to a police force and an armed wing, PYD-run courts are also part of the Kurdish administration. While party officials and civil administration officials say that the local courts, known as the People's Courts, are independent, lawyers and rights activists told Human Rights Watch of political interference in investigations and trials. In some cases, judges have apparently convicted people based only on their confessions, and disregarded complaints of abuse during interrogation, the report said.

Several detainees told HRW activists that the security forces had beaten them in custody. In two recent cases involving the Asayish, the beatings victims died, the report said.The PYD has denied responsibility for these incidents but has apparently failed to conduct genuine investigations, HRW said.

Kurds worried war crime accusation coud ruin kurdish imageFeb 2015

For the first time, the image of the Western-supported Iraqi Kurds has been damaged after a Dutch TV station report eported on possible war crimes in their battle against the militant group the Islamic State (IS).In the report, the Dutch-Kurdish commander of the Kurdish People’s Defence Force, Serdar Dosky, a former member of the Dutch Socialist Party, is heard saying the Kurds do not take prisoners of war, but kill them.“We give them the bullet. A bullet costs 50 cents. We give them a second bullet to get rid of them,” he told the reporter Jan Eikelboom, under the assumption the TV camera had stopped recording. But his voice was still being recorded, and the Dutch reporter decided it was too important not to report what Dosky said.“So you are not taking prisoners?” Eikelboom asks Dosky. “Ah, no, not in my forces, nowhere actually. Let’s be honest - simply nowhere. We don’t want prisoners.”Dosky, who was active for the Socialist Party (SP) in the Netherlands before he left Holland for Kurdistan in 2005, says his comments were meant as a joke.Harry van Bommel, an MP for the Socialist Party, and Michiel Servaes from the Dutch Labour Party asked questions in parliament about the allegations, and requested that the Dutch government put pressure on the Kurds to investigate possible human rights violations.Van Bommel, a friend of Dosky, says he asked the questions to change the image that is now prevailing in the Netherlands that Kurds execute prisoners of war.“The parliamentary questions were asked because Serdar Dosky tried to convince me that what he said is not true, and that he only tried to act tough. It is important that an objective party can establish the facts,” van Bommel told Middle East Eye.The Dutch MP thinks the report damaged the image of the Kurds. “I have talked myself to Fazel Mirani [a Kurdish official]. He is very angry at Serdar. They are trying to do everything to correct the image.”The Dutch public prosecutor Bart den Hartigh told NPO Radio 1 last Friday that they will possibly investigate Dosky for war crimes if the allegations are proven. But he noted it would be difficult to send people to the war zone to investigate. “It is not safe to send people there,” den Hartigh told the Dutch radio station.Moreover, the report suggests that the Arab village of Barzan (west of Zummar, which was captured one week ago) was completely destroyed by Peshmerga forces in a revenge attack for the killing of Peshmerga prisoners by the villagers.

In the case of the village burned we have had multiple repeats of that in Syria- so it is a pattern of abuse between the two nations of Syria and Iraq

The report by the Dutch TV station led to angry reactions among Dutch Kurds against the programme. In general, the Western media has reported positively on the Kurds and their fight against the Islamic State, the main enemy of the West.Now some Kurds worry it will hurt the image of the Kurds in the West. “With limited proof, the heavy claim endangers the image of the Peshmerga forces, glueing a stigma onto them that could potentially disrupt the international coalition at a sensitive time,” said Erbil-based Dutch-Kurdish filmmaker Beri Shalmashi.“The fact for now is that there aren’t enough leads to even be able to investigate,” said Donatella Rovera, a senior crisis response adviser for Amnesty International, about alleged executions.But she says there is proof for the destruction of the village of Barzan, also known as Barzanke, after visiting the village on Thursday.“The Peshmerga were very clear that the villagers, who are Arab Sunni Muslims, will not be returning, and the scale of the destruction will indeed make it impossible for them to return as virtually every single house has been destroyed or damaged beyond repair,” she told Middle East Eye.  

They people will not be returning to their homes because everything is destroyed beyond repair- there is nothing to return to- Ethnic cleansing my friends. Ethnic cleansing

“Such practices could constitute war crimes and it is imperative that the KRG act without delay to ensure that such abuses will not be repeated in other areas which may be retaken by the Peshmerga. They must ensure that the wanton destruction in Barzanke is investigated and those responsible be held accountable,” she emphasised.

We see from recent reports wanton destruction continues, no investigation and no one being held accountable

Amnesty called on the Western countries supporting the Peshmerga to “put in place the necessary oversight mechanisms to ensure the conduct of the Peshmerga complies with international humanitarian law (the laws of war).”

 No oversight has been put in place to ensure the Kurdish militias comply with any sort of lawUPDATE BEGINS:MEM:

Media reports accused Kurdish fighters, known as the People's Protection Units (YPG) who have been backed by US-led coalition, of engaging in "a kind of ethnic cleansing" against local communities by forcing their displacement.

Former Tel Abyad city council member, Ahmed Al-Haj Saleh accused the YPG of displacing thousands of Syrian Arabs and Turkmen from villages near Tel Abyad. Al-Haj Saleh told Turkey's Anadolu Agency via telephone that "the violations began on 13 June where YPG units deported the entire population of Zahle village, 14 kilometres south of Tel Abyad, totalling about 500 people."

"As the Kurdish forces have moved to west [from Al-Hassakeh north-eastern Syria to Tel Abyad] the airstrikes have moved with them," he explained.

Going back a year- considering the latest news- we read and understand there is a continuing pattern of abuse by the Kurdish/NATO connected fighters in both Iraq and Syria