The judgement of the Rojava Tribunal delivered to the European Parliament in Brussels identifies war crimes, crimes against humanity and crimes of aggression carried out by Turkey against the residents of the territories governed by the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES). The Tribunal calls on the EU parliament and the international community to: “Ensure the conditions for the development of coordinated efforts for the international recognition of the Autonomous Administration in the context of a necessary peace process for the Kurdish people in the region.” Medya News’ Sarah Glynn spoke to Frances Webber, president of the Tribunal’s panel of judges about watching the harrowing evidence of Turkey's war crimes.
The judgement of the Permanent Peoples’ Tribunal (PPT) on Rojava vs. Turkey was presented on 26 March at the European Parliament in Brussels. The judgement followed the two-day tribunal on Turkey’s war crimes in North and East Syria which was held in Brussels’ Vrije University on 5-6 February this year. The Tribunal heard eyewitness testimony of human rights abuses and analysis from a team of international legal experts.
Countering the ‘crime of silence’
In a social media post on X, the PPT stated that their purpose was:
“to counter what Sartre denounced as the ‘crime of silence’, in the face of the atrocities masquerading as anti-terrorist operations which this Session has revealed. As the schoolgirl survivors of the atrocity at Schemoka school declared, ‘No one should turn a blind eye to Erdoğan; no one should be silent against the Turkish State’.”
The judgement identifies three categories of crimes carried out by Turkey against the residents of the territories governed by the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES):
– Crimes of aggression: during “unlawful military interventions in Syria between 2018 and 2024, against the will of the Syrian authorities and the Rojava autonomous administration.”
– Crimes against humanity: in particular “ethnic cleansing (forced displacement of the Kurdish population and ethnic engineering by resettling Syrians from elsewhere).”
– War crimes: including “targeted killings of civilians, indiscriminate bombing of civilians, unlawful deportation and transfer by an occupying power of its own population; appropriation of civilian property; use of banned weapons; cultural and religious erasure through destruction of cultural heritage; collective punishment; environmental destruction; targeting of women; unlawful detention; torture; destruction of civilian infrastructure”.
The tribunal points out that these crimes were also grave and systematic breaches of human rights.
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List of recommendations
The PPT judges made a list of recommendations to the Government of Turkey, the Government of Syria, the United Nations, the European Council, the Council of Europe and its Member States, and the international community. These include demands that Turkey end its occupation of Afrin (Efrin); cease its attacks on the AANES; stop funding armed groups; allow the investigation of war crimes and allow the Council of Europe to investigate the human rights situation in Afrin.
The Tribunal recommended that the international community:
“Ensure the conditions for the development of coordinated efforts for the international recognition of the Autonomous Administration in the context of a necessary peace process for the Kurdish people in the region. As a prerequisite to any peace process, eliminate the label of ‘terrorist’ in respect of all participants in such a process. The guarantee of a peace process is the main remedy and the condition to face the problem of impunity and reparation, which all democratic societies need in order to comply with national and international law.”
The Tribunal calls for the setting up of a ‘Special Rojava Kurdish Regional Justice Mechanism’ to facilitate the investigation and prosecution of war crimes.
Tribunal judge speaks to Medya News
Lawyer and president of the Permanent Peoples’ Tribunal panel of judges Frances Webber, who first became involved with the Kurdish issue when she represented Kurdish refugees to the UK in the 1980s.
Medya News’ Sarah Glynn spoke to the PPT Panel of Judges President Frances Webber, who spoke passionately about the horror of watching evidence of a drone attack on protesters at the Tishreen (Tışrîn) dam. She said it was hard to describe:
“The sheer cruelty of the bombing of the Tishreen Dam, the bombing of the protesters when they were doing this dance, and you see this drone, you are the drone, you’re going down there with the drone, and these people scatter, and, you know, some of them don’t get up. And apparently, the evidence was that the drone had a message on it, something like, ‘with greetings to our Kurdish friends’ or something like that. You know, it’s killing them, and they’re greeting them.”
“It’s this utter inhumanity which happens when you are taught, presumably from the cradle, I don’t know, that these people are not real people, they’re enemies, they’re other, they’re lower than you are, all that kind of stuff that goes on. So, those things were shocking. But, yeah, as I say, the ability of people to live through those things and to talk about them and to gather themselves together and to carry on is just breathtaking.”
Webber, who first became involved in the Kurdish issue after working as a lawyer for Kurdish asylum seekers in the UK in the 1980s, mentioned in particular some evidence heard by the Tribunal of a group of schoolgirls at Schemoka who had experienced an attack by the Turkish military, and waited in vain for the international coalition to support them. “To see those girls, the young girls who had to sit there in the playground with their friends, who were dying, waiting in vain for hours for the international coalition, whose base was two kilometres away, to turn up and rescue them and take them to hospital, and nobody came,” said Webber.
The panel president was speaking about the 18 August 2022 Turkish attack on the Schemoka girls school in Hasakah (Hesekê), which the Tribunal categorised as a war crime.
Webber told Medya News that she was struck by the way that the the girls maintained “dignity” and “optimism”, and a will “not to be crushed”, despite what they had been through.
As a member of the UK’s Institute of Race Relations, Webber told Medya News that it is imperative that the Kurdish peoples’ international supporters keep on struggling from outside. “We have to carry on. If the Kurds of Rojava can carry on, we certainly have to carry on, because we’re extremely privileged, you know,” she said.
The world should not ‘turn a blind eye’
Nobel Prize Laureate Shirin Ebadi spoke to the EU Parliament after the Rojava Tribunal delivered its verdict
Nobel Prize Laureate Shirin Ebadi echoed Webber’s words in her impassioned speech to the parliament, after the judgement was delivered. She said:
“How long is this crime going to continue? Why is no one putting an end to it? Let’s don’t forget that these crimes are not only committed against Kurds in Rojava but in Turkey, Iran and Iraq. I hope the world will not turn a blind eye to the situation of the Kurds. Human rights activists and journalists, be more active!”
The full judgement of the tribunal can be read here.