Families grieve imprisonment of dozens of KNC members by Rojava security

Dozens of leaders and members of the Kurdish National Council (KNC) have been missing for a month in the Kurdish areas of Syrian Kurdistan-Rojava.

 

Their families have told Rudaw that they were detained by the security forces during the burial ceremony held for a Rojava Peshmerga killed in battle.

 

Their families have not been able to see them nor have they been told anything of their fate.

 

“I want them to release my son. His children are young. There are 11 children in my house.”She told Rudaw inside her home in Qamishli.

 

One woman whose son is among the detainees said she does not know where he is or anything about him since he was detained by the Kurdish security last month. She wants to be able to see him even for five minutes.

 

She said: “Every time Alan left the house, even for half an hour, he would call me 20 times. But now, it has been a month. They don’t tell us where he’s. They don’t tell us which prison. If they tell us where he’s, we would go and visit our son, even for five minutes.”

 

One woman whose husband was also picked up by the security forces says she’s happy that her husband was arrested in his native land and under the flag of Kurdistan.

 

“My husband was arrested and I’m honored by him. He was arrested under the Kurdish flag. For his nationalism. So we’re not sad. Everything is good.”

 

“No matter how many of us they’ll arrest, hundreds or thousands, we’ll never bow our heads,” she said defiantly.

 

Leaders of the KNC, known by its Kurdish initials as ENKS, have long complained that the security forces of the Democratic Union Party (PYD) arrest their members and bar the activities of their political offices across Rojava.