On November 7, 2017, the Kurdish National Council in Syria (KNC) was planning to hold his fourth general assembly in Al-Qamişlo. A new president as well as new members for the various committees of the KNC should be elected.
When the congress was about to start, members of the Asayiş, the security service of the Democratic Union Party (PYD), prevented KNC-members to enter the meeting room. They declared that the meeting could not take place as the Asayiş was unable to protect the event. When KNC-officials explained that they would provide their own security, they were told that they had no authorisation to uphold the meeting. The congress was subsequently dissolved.
Thus, the PYD and its security service once again prevented the KNC to pursue its political work. The PYD has created a repressive one-party-system in Syrian-Kurdistan, a system that does not allow any opposition to it. Members of the KNC as well as independent journalists are regularly intimidated, kidnapped and imprisoned, all KNC offices have been closed down, forced recruitment is driving ten of thousands of young men out of the country. The dissolution of the KNC’s general assembly is, thus, just another step of the PYD to secure its absolute rule in the Kurdish regions of Syria.