ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - A female judge in the northern Syrian city of Afrin has been threatened after the court ordered Arab settlers to evacuate 150 houses and return them to their original owners.
One of the most prominent judges of the court is Newroz Hasso, a Kurd. Since the verdict came out, she has been threatened and the settlers have vowed they will stage protests until she is removed from her position.
“The streets of Afrin will not be quiet until Mohammed Sheikh Rashid and Judge Nergis [Newroz] fall,” a man shouted in a video published on social media. He was part of a group of settlers who took to the streets on Thursday.
Rashid is also a Kurd and is the deputy chairman of Afrin’s local council.
Afrin is a Kurdish city that was taken over by Turkey and Turkish-backed Syrian rebels in a military operation against Kurdish fighters of the People’s Protection Units (YPG) in January 2018. Most of the Kurdish population fled and Turkish authorities resettled Arabs displaced from elsewhere in Syria into their vacated homes.
Abdulrahman Apo, an official from northeast Syria’s (Rojava) main opposition party, the Kurdistan Democratic Party - Syria (PDK-S), told Rudaw on Friday that “Newroz is a Kurdish woman who was a lawyer before the occupation of Afrin and later became a judge.”
“The decision against Arab settlers was through her own efforts,” Apo said.
He said the settlers have accused the judge of belonging to Rojava’s ruling Democratic Union Party (PYD), alleged by Turkey to be the Syrian political front for the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).
“The decision says that some Arab settlers who have entered Kurdish houses must vacate them, which has caused protests among the settlers who say that Judge Newroz Hasso belongs to the PYD and the Autonomous Administration [of North and East Syria],” Apo explained. “They are always ready to make these accusations.”
Ibrahim Shekho, a legal activist from Afrin residing in Shahba, said that the judge’s life is in “grave danger.”
“Since the decision, Arab settlers in Afrin are openly threatening the judge and want to promote nationalism,” Shekho said.
Human rights groups and the United Nations have published multiple reports detailing arbitrary arrests, detention, and pillaging, among other violations committed against Afrin’s Kurdish population and they hold Ankara responsible.
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