By Orhan Qereman
QAMISHLI, Syria (Reuters) – 1000’s of girls rallied within the northeastern Syrian metropolis of Qamishli on Monday to demand the brand new Islamist rulers in Damascus respect ladies’s rights and to sentence Turkish-backed army campaigns in Kurdish-led areas of the north.
Lots of the protesters waved the inexperienced flag of the Ladies’s Safety Models (YPJ), an affiliate of the Kurdish Individuals’s Safety Models militia (YPG) that Turkey deems a nationwide safety risk and desires disbanded instantly.
“We are demanding women’s rights from the new state … and women must not be excluded from rights in this system,” mentioned Sawsan Hussein, a ladies’s rights activist.
“We are (also) condemning the attacks of the Turkish occupation against the city of Kobani.”
Kurdish teams have loved autonomy throughout a lot of the north since Syria’s civil struggle started in 2011. The Kurdish YPG militia, which leads the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) armed group, is a serious power within the space.
However Syria’s energy stability has shifted away from these teams because the Islamist Hayat Tahrir al-Sham group (HTS) swept into Damascus and toppled Bashar al-Assad two weeks in the past, establishing a brand new administration pleasant to Ankara.
Syria’s dominant Kurdish teams embrace an ideology emphasising socialism and feminism – in distinction to the conservative Sunni Islamist views of HTS, a former al Qaeda affiliate.
Turkey views the YPG as an extension of the Kurdistan Employees’ Celebration (PKK), which has been waging an insurgency in opposition to the Turkish state since 1984 and is deemed a terrorist group by Turkey, the USA and the European Union.
Hostilities between the SDF and a Turkey-backed Syrian power often known as the Syrian Nationwide Military have escalated since Assad was ousted, with the SDF pushed out of the northern metropolis of Manbij.
Syrian Kurdish leaders have warned that Turkish forces are mobilising for an offensive on the SDF-controlled metropolis of Kobani on the Turkish border, also referred to as Ayn al-Arab.
There’s widespread apprehension amongst Syrians that the brand new Damascus administration will gravitate in direction of hardline Islamist rule, marginalising minorities and girls from public life.
Obaida Arnout, a spokesperson for the Syrian transitional authorities, mentioned final week that girls’s “biological and physiological nature” rendered them unfit for sure governmental jobs.
Hemrin Ali, an official within the Kurdish-led administration of northeastern Syria, instructed Reuters at Monday’s rally: “Yes to supporting the YPJ. Yes to preserving the rights and gains of the women’s revolution in northern and eastern Syria.”
