A Clearer View on the "Assad Files"

August 3. 2019
(rough, incomplete)

The following article serves as a review of the report "Walls Have Ears: An Analysis of Classified Syrian Security Sector Documents," published April/May 2019 in Washington, DC. by Syria Justice and Accountability Centre (SJAC), dedicated to "a Syria defined by justice, respect for human rights, and rule of law." Direct link: https://syriaaccountability.org/library/walls-have-ears/

As explained, the report is based on analysis of some 5,003 pages of documents "obtained from intelligence agency offices that were abandoned by the government during the Syrian war." Actually just 3,470 of those wound up relevant enough to consider, and a smaller portion of those are said to expose "serious human rights violations."

These include a vast majority from the "Assad Files" as I've covered them, from a separate but likeminded Committee for International Justice and Accountability (CIJA) with a touted 800,000 pages worth. The Globe and Mail (Canada) recently spoke with Canadian Bill Wiley, CIJA's founder, who said the files ("more than 800,000 pages" worth) present “the best evidence against a regime since Nuremberg,” and is “much, much better” than what was presented in court against Slobodan Milosevic. Huh. I leave it to the reader to decide what that means.

Other documents are from the SJAC's own smaller collection of about 5,000 pages. From what's cited and not, the SJAC's files seem to be more of the same (legitimate documents but lacking in criminal orders). As such, they should be included in, and add a sliver to the "Assad Files," which is not exclusively the domain of CIJA.

With a total of 3,470 pages examined for this report, this is the largest body of such documents specifically looked at and assessed in total, and our best view yet into how the "Assad Files" in general really look. So far it's been down to noting the weakness of their chosen best examples. Here, we get a sort of overview of a very large set - good and bad examples - chosen supposedly at random.

In that light, I'll re-explain their stated selection process (but further down - see "sample selection and relevance") to show why this sampling matters and helps clarify the significance of patterns illustrated here. First the patterns - what kinds of alleged regime crimes wound up having evidence located, and which did not.

Overview

Mass irrelevance
As the file selection process shows (see below) of all "Assad Files" - a vast majority probably over 96% - are completely irrelevant. Of the more relevant 3-4%, this sampling suggests a majority also have no bearing on relevant subjects (only 848 "high priority" pages vs. 2,622 not so high). And even with those ... the examples shown thus far suggest nothing terribly incriminating was found, and that impression runs right through everything the SJAC adds here.

The juicy core: admitted violations
Of the selected pages (3,470) only about 6% of them (214 pages) "included a confession to a possible violation" - a criminal order given in a top-secret file is the main thing the CIJA and others have been suggesting they have lots of. Some are orders for acts most readers would disprove of, but this 214 pages with "confessions" also include an unclear percentage with "indirect admissions, such as instructions to cease a certain activity that is a clear violation" So orders to stop an activity - ordered in the first place or not - count as "admissions." "SJAC found no evidence to suggest that these directives (to cease violations) were followed," perhaps allowing violations to continue. But they also admit by omission they found no orders to start any serious abuses.

Even with "violations" seeming relatively mundane, or vague and poorly-explained (see below), and with "admissions" to them defined so broadly, just 214 out of some 3,500 pages fit the bill. This suggests close to 6% of all equally "relevant" documents across the "Assad Files" will include such a broadly-defined "admission" - probably just as grossly padded as this, and probably including zero real support to the opposition's outlandish mythology.

Seven shared pages
11 pages from the sample set were deemed important enough by SJAC to share in their original form and translated to English (with minor redactions). But four of these are about "repression of the Kurds" and date from 2010, before the terrorist insurgency and current allegations began. (such dated files are included, ostensibly, because measures in this span MIGHT feed into relevant resentments in 2011. But it wasn't an uprising of repressed Kurds, was it?) Just seven shared pages concern all other alleged crimes from 2011 and forward, combined! This select seven has a lot riding on it - they had better be good. But here are all of them, briefly summarized:

- orders to “do the necessary” regarding a certain journalist (presumably arrest her, if she re-entered Syria)
- orders from 2014 to destroy vehicles left at checkpoints and suspected of being rigged with explosives, but as SJAC complains ... without a reminder to avoid civilian casualties (why is a reminder needed?), and without urging troops to search the vehicles first, which ... SJAC thinks is the best way to be sure it's rigged to blow up?
- An admission of at least three children (or "juveniles under age 18" as given) were arrested in one place (unclear) during 2013-14. Aged 14-16 at the time, depending, all three were accused of terrorism-militant activities, including joining armed groups as child soldiers (they recruit usually from age 13 and up), training to shoot, and even shooting in militant attacks. Also, they were arrested, and that's a "violation" by the government?
- In December, 2011, orders stop having civilians in Homs help run security checkpoints and openly identify targets for arrest. The practice was raising sectarian tensions, which had led to kidnapping and killings by civilians on both sides (app. meaning Sunni and Alawite), and must be stopped. See ACLOS posting.
- Orders to use seized motorcycles for new counter-terror group (according to SJAC, this practice was later halted, or "passively admitted," besides here being seen ordered.)
- A warning of likely chemical weapons use by terrorist, using materials seized from Libya's stocks, in order to frame the government (as it happens, about 2 weeks before the first such allegations I know of, in February, 2012) See ACLOS posting.
- An official felt there was a conspiracy of lies against the Syrian government, and wanted thoughts on it.

And remember these seven are probably among the best examples they could find, out of ~3,500 potentially relevant pages, to illustrate those "serious human rights violations" the SJAC want us to believe in.

Torture
The report admits "None of the pages in the sample set explicitly admitted to the use of torture, despite widespread and consistent accusations..." That's zero out of 3,470. But the SJAC prefers the accusations, of course, and suggest as probable that "despite the government’s detailed records, certain topics were intentionally omitted or concealed in written communications." This would be convenient - everything you want to find but can't must have been ordered in more secret files since burned, or issued verbally, or in code, with a system of winks and nods, or perhaps by pheromones as with ants. But never could they consider that such thing simply were never ordered by the Syrian government. SJAC also notes, as if in desperation: "At least one page, however, included a handwritten note from a detained individual who confessed to crimes and swore that he was not beaten or tortured during his arrest, raising suspicions that he may have indeed been tortured or mistreated in detention." So they have some pretty self-raising suspicions, that enjoy only inverse support from the documents.

Mass killing of prisoners
Among 3,470 pages, enough mention detainees that a "vast majority" of them don't mention a death, let alone a murder, ordered or otherwise. It seems reference to just one death in custody was found, and they have to doubt its claims that he died from an infection, stemming from an injury sustained during his arrest. As they put it, the files have the patient treated in a hospital and declared stable, only to die anyway, apparently just before he was to be transferred to a Mukhabarat prison (unclear timeline). To the SJAC, "The YouTube video" of the victim's body, and not any located document, "indicates that he may have experienced torture and other mistreatment in custody," This is based on noted "bruising" that might actually be infection-related, for example.

This one case alone gave enough material to "raise questions" to this effect, to people over-eager to see them raised. One death with no clear admission or order involved actually raises the question "where the hell are the orders behind the alleged mass of prisoner killings?" Was this too "omitted or concealed"? Of course they would have to find this likely enough it's probably true...

The "Caesar Photos" indeed prove something quite terrible and very large. My analysis of the timeline of CP victims suggests these abused bodies were produced at an alarming rate - averaging around 1,000 per month from late 2012 through August, 2013 - all with no reflection in official orders? The given story of systematic killing in regime prisons has long coat-tails, provided by those very many photographs as "proof," and which these Assad Files tend to ride on. They focus on the same class of allegations, with CIJA trying to craft a paperwork version of that stronger story; the two are repeatedly used together in moving videos by UK "news" outlets, leaning against each other as is convenient. But closer inspection reveals how they probably do not show the same thing, as sold. The CIJA and SJAC have so far failed to find any remotely clear link between that criminality and the top-secret communications that should reflect it somewhere - if that mass extermination of prisoners was ever the work of the government. There was a specific effort - or two - that seems like well-researched tries at a timeline match-up with two specific CP victims, both pinned on branch 227 in a short time span.  But I was able to almost prove that both of these best tries were phony. That's the best it gets, so no line-up; these numbers and documents refer to different people in different prison systems! As it stands, the "Assad Files" line-up with a growing body of evidence suggesting the thousands of murdered men and boys in those "Caesar Photos" were killed by others (probably Jaish Al-Islam) on the "moderate Islamist" opposition side (Al-Qaeda-Al-Nusra and the rest, aside from ISIS), whom the CIJA admits it works with, and does not investigate at all.

Targeting journalists and coded orders
At least one file (November 18, 2011) speaks to targeting of journalists and well enough to include in full. A foreign female journalist (name redacted) was considered criminal for her pro-militant reporting and agitation, and had been barred from Syria. There are unexplained orders to "do the necessary" - a standard phrase, here probably meaning keep monitoring her two known phone numbers, and arrest her if she was caught back in Syria. That's not terrible at all, unless one imagines hidden meanings. And it seems nothing more criminal along these lines came up in the sample set.

SJAC imagines hidden meaning here, proposing that the standard phrase "do the necessary" (or “take the necessary measures” or similar) - as used with the case above - can be a code ordering killing or other criminal activity. Do cue the mood music. "The difficulty" they opted to have "was in understanding whether the phrase was a relevant indicator of a potential violation or a simple catch-all used in even mundane circumstances." The doubt comes not from anything in the files, but from military and intelligence "defectors" lodging some unverified and propagandistic claims.

- one defector said that a similar - but different - phrase meant to arrest or kill journalist Marie Colvin, who was killed, under murky circumstances, allegedly on government orders, but seemingly with no supports found in the Assad Files - just from the allegations of this defector.

- some 63 defectors all told HRW in 2011 that another similar phrase - "By all means necessary!" - meant to shoot and kill peaceful protesters ("about half" said killing was explicitly ordered, even with death quotas given, the rest all felt it was hinted but not said outright. All agreed the orders were issued verbally, not on paper, and in fact "Ameen" said "On paper, it said “Stop the protesters,” but verbally he explicitly said, “Kill.”")

The best example SJAC found in their search suggested "do the necessary" meant to paint over some graffiti (reported as done) and then do "the necessary" with the law-breakers if they were ever found. That's supposed to sound ominous, but it probably isn't. With the above case around the journalist (by the way, not Marie Colvin), it probably means monitor and arrest a person, if warranted.

…

Admission to the Commission of Crimes
This is the key thing you should find lots of here, in top-secret orders for said crimes, reports of carrying them out, etc. SJAC identified 214 pages that included a confession to a possible violation. That's ~ 6% of the sample set. Of these 214 pages, a majority are "implicated human rights abuses" (violating right to freedom of assembly, due process rights, etc.) while "a much smaller number of pages implicated violations of international humanitarian law," more specifically criminal activities. But generally, the gravity of offense and degree of implication are left unclear.

"The largest percentage" of those related to "protests, including surveillance of suspected government dissidents, wanted lists and arrest campaigns, and government security forces’ activities during protests" (or maybe during those armed "events" they also refer to - dealing with immediate militant problems, not issuing orders for massacres, prison torture and other acts of random villainy.

"The types of alleged violations which the Syrian government directly admitted to in the documents" - which should include the most severe violations possibly located - are given as:

Violation of Freedom of Expression and Assembly.
Violation of Due Process Rights.
Arbitrary Detention and Death of Children.
Violations of the Principle of Distinction.
Manipulation of Humanitarian Aid.
They found nothing more serious, like systematic genocide, or it would be noted. Let's consider a couple of these.

Conflation of Unarmed Civilians, Armed Groups, and Terrorists.
…
I can vouch for some abiguity in the wording. As we've seen, the CIJA deliberately exaggerates any conflation and then ignores the militant part, to falsely claim a government strategy in 2011 of rounding up peaceful protest organizers. (it was in fact specified all wanted targets were wanted for violent crimes including mudering and "terrorizing" citizens, and some of the militants were also organizing some kind of armed "demonstrations." A rare glimpse of the original document proves it contains nothing criminal, but it was sold based on distorted paraphrasing as the "linchpin" of the CIJA's case against government officials. Let's keep calling it their linchpin. It probably will tie in nicely with the rest, with reasonable actions distorted to sound criminal... nothing in the SJAC report or previously does much to counter that impression.
https://21stcenturywire.com/2018/10/11/revolution-unraveled-assad-files-now-an-achilles-heel-for-war-crimes-narrative/
Is this what they meant? If so, there's my guess; "demonstraions" has a different meaning than usual. Two different documents clarify these events had someone "arming" them, and were organized by armed militants, not peaceful activists. The word they used for "demonstrations" (as CIJA had translated it in at least one important case from 2011) is التظاهرات (altazaharat). This Google-translates vaguely to "events" and is not the usual word for "demonstrations" ( المظاهرات - almazaharat, very similar), nor the usual word for events ( الأحداث - al'ahdath - not similar at all). If spelling = meaning (which it doesn't), this word suggests an unusual "event" that looks like a protest but isn't. That might be about its meaning, as used.
http://libyancivilwar.blogspot.com/2018/09/painting-vs-reality-in-syria-crisis.html

It might be pretentious for this non-Arabic speaker to challenge the SJAC reading, but I challenge it (after consulting a couple native speakers). The word used apparently means a hard-to-classify "event" that involve both protest and shooting, and used in line with thinking shaped by years of emergency law, by which anti-government, Islamist, or sectarian demonstrations like these were roughly as illegal as the armed violence that tends to come with them. People involved in these "events" do, as translated, "demonstrate" and are called "demonstrators" (usual words). But they're clearly armed, as it says, and in other contexts with no protests at the moment, it's probably the same people they refer to as "armed gangs."

The flip-side of this reading is there would be no distinct word for non-violent demonstrator. Unless, perhaps, they did exactly what I just did: specify this one was peaceful. For all we know they do this, and the SJAC just didn't mention it, as they claim deliberate conflation, presumably to "justify" that plan to shoot down harmless protesters (for which there's still no clear evidence whatsoever in the "Assad Files.")

Manipulation of Humanitarian Aid"
From the given details, it sounds like questionable controls were placed on aid deliveries, perhaps with political conditions attached (limiting the number of aid trucks allowed in, etc.) This isn't the best-sounding practice, but let's pause to consider what it also doesn't sound like. There's nothing mentioned about imposing a total starvation blockade anywhere, when it's been alleged just about everywhere, and generally believed. The CIJA has never mentioned finding such a thing either. "Omitted or concealed"?

Even if there were orders somewhere, the mechanism of its implementation remains mysterious. The visual record is clear that militants and allies eat as well as they like (see Yaser al-Doumani's weight-gain during the siege of E Ghouta). Accounts and images suggest most people suffer shortages (due mostly to hoarding and price-gouging by militants and allies) with real health effects, but nearly all of them keep finding enough to eat they stay alive, at least. And then we've been shown what must be a select few people get entirely cut off from food, probably water and all care (or sometimes fall ill and aren't treated), but as soon as they finally pass away, concerned people are able to get that skin-and-bones corpse on video, shown off as to prove Assad's starvation blockade. How "Assad" got the people in these rebel-held areas to stop sharing food with each other was never explained, and no one pressed for an explanation. Also, as CIJA and SJAC confirm by omission, no orders related to such a (human decency embargo?) have been located. The evil behind this must have another source. (Is there another power with a hand in Syria known to use total starvation blockades for real? Consider their proxies.) (Below: Yaser al-Doumani vs. a contrast in the alleged regime starving of Yarmouk Palestinian camp.

"Arbitrary Detention and Death of Children"
The report notes "One page was a telegram request for a list of children being held at security offices, indicating that the security apparatus was aware of such practices." As noted above, one shared page gives a reply: three teenage boys (all aged around 15) are listed as taken in for membership in armed militant groups and related activities (training to shoot, joining in attacks, filming attacks, suspicious surveillance of pro-government civilians, etc.) Militants recruit children, the government arrests them as needed, and regime officials were aware of this! They almost surely approved of it! I would too! (below: cropped from SJAC's page translation)

SJAC reports two further documents out of 3,470 referred to three other juveniles arrested for things that aren't even crimes in most countries (but are in Syria, and it's known). One refers to a boy arrested "for participation in protests" of a disallowed sort, and the other is about two kids taken in "for supposedly saying “shame” when passing a photo of Assad." Ages weren't given. We may not approve of these cases, but is it fit for a trial at the Hague?

"Another page listed names of individuals who were killed in clashes at a protest in Deir Ezzor, which included minors." Who killed who and all other circumstances are left totally unclear. Maybe those killed were more opposition child soldiers killed in self-defense? It seems nothing else in 3,470 pages came closer to illustrating criminal targeting of innocent children.

"Indirect Admissions"
"Another recurring pattern was indirect admissions, such as instructions to cease a certain activity that is a clear violation, meaning there was knowledge the crimes had previously occurred (e.g. orders to cease the use of deadly force during protests and the looting of humanitarian aid convoys)." SJAC found orders to stop certain moderately criminal activities, but wasn't impressed, claiming they "found no evidence to suggest that these directives were followed," allowing the abuses to continue. Orders to start such "violations" were found in at least once case (the motorcycles), but in general, SJAC admits by omission they also found no orders to initiate most cited practices - and no mention whatsoever of entire classes horrific crimes that have been widely alleged and believed.

The SJAC report does get specific about what kind of crimes were "admitted," possibly permitted, perhaps secretly ordered. "Soldiers were to cease certain activities, including" these, most likely listed for being the most severe violations found in a look at in the juiciest portions of the touted "Assad Files" (some with my notes added below).

- "stealing propane to fuel their personal vehicles"

- "shooting protestors" - "using military weapons during protests"
-- previously I've seen orders not to shoot, not an admission anyone was shooting (likely just repeating a standard order for good effect). Same here? And if they were shooting, was it at the kind of armed "demonstrators" involved in the "events" some documents refer to? (see aove, on "conflation") And still no one has seen and shared an order to start shooting, defensively or otherwise.

- "holding family members of suspects hostage"
-- documents said to prove "the detention of family members to encourage suspects to turn themselves in" - no details given)

- "the use of confiscated motorcycles by security personnel for patrols"
-- another SJAC file - unusually - shows the order to start this (22 Jan. 2012). Even this was called off, according the SJAC; this repressive regime would not use or profit from seized property, even if it was taken from terrorists and used to protect the citizens from them.

…

Anti-Sunni sectarianism / genocide policy
This has been widely alleged, its supposed factual bases repeatedly accepted, and yet ... The SJAC found nothing to suggest repression of the Sunni Arab majority ("aside from everything," some would stupidly argue; "the whole point of the repression is to crush the Sunnis"). Nor did they locate and mention anything illustrating promotion of Alawite supremacy of the kind alleged behind the raging genocide of Sunnis. These are two sides of the coin by which Assad's economy of evil is said to run, but SJAC and CIJA before them found nothing explicit to suggest either side of it (the coin is counterfeit!), nor about targeting of other religious minorities, despite some effort looking for it.

The biggest thing the SJAC found was sectarian tensions in Homs where Sunnis and Alawites (presumably, not stated) were arresting each other - "reciprocal sectarian kidnappings and killings peaked in Homs" - indeed - I had read of a spate of killings in roughly the first week of December. Gruesome and murky stuff: http://acloserlookonsyria.shoutwiki.com/wiki/Early_December,_2011_Sectarian_Killings_in_Homs

The government was accusing civilians both sides of some part - not necessarily equal - in a crisis they wanted resolved. That seems to be the true situation, so maybe the true intent? Problem identified: "the use of civilians at some checkpoints to openly select targets." The civilians were drawn from neighborhoods on a rotating basis, and would tend to have a religion or sect. Alawites with some knowledge of Sunnis extremists in their vicinity might be useful right at a checkpoint. But it was done openly, so people could see an Alawite helping arrest a Sunni at some point, for example (the vice-versa being pretty unlikely). And guess who might go on a rampage against all Alawite citizens then? Who's more likely to reciprocate for that, as opposed to starting it?

The practice was to be banned ("as of this date it is prohibited"), and authorities were urged instead to "use covert security methods that do not incite hatred and tension among the citizens." But the SJAC and their ilk suspect, no matter what, increasing tensions and forcing Sunnis to kill their neighbors was the whole plan. They'll suspect this memo was just for internal show, and they really meant to amp it up, maybe taking these sectarian Alawite civilians on home raids, armed with machetes, call them "Shabiha," have them chant sectarian slogans as they slaughter multiple families, but leaving a miracle survivor or two from each house, and leaving all the bodies behind … It has been alleged, a lot. But the best suggestion SJAC could find in that direction was this relatively sane counter-terror policy that was only cancelled, I would guess, once it started getting the adjunct security and their families kidnapped and murdered.

However, the Kurds …

Context

Sample selection and relevance

Total: "SJAC possesses high quality scans of an estimated 483,000 pages of documents taken from government facilities," some of which (nearly 5,000) were collected by SJAC’s team, and far more (nearly 478,000) were collected by and loaned from CIJA. The latter should be some 60% of CIJA's touted collection of 800,000 pages (likely the more fruitful half, perhaps picked at random, surely not picked as the weaker half). All files from CIJA and SJAC will henceforth be considered part of the same "Assad Files."

First that larger pool of 483,000 was sorted into relevant and irrelevant documents, based on the criteria below, "to focus on documents related to state practices that fueled resentment prior to 2011 or that depicted orders and practices employed after unrest began in 2011." Anything earlier than the year 2000 was deemed irrelevant, and anything from there to 2010 was too, "unless they included information about the surveillance and targeting of political dissidents and/or ethnic/religious groups." Documents from 2011 and later "were deemed relevant unless they were publicly available documents." Copies of presidential decrees, a "police magazine" (article?) and "a procurement document from the department of agriculture" are cited as examples of things they found and filtered out.

Using those criteria, the report explains "approximately 18,000 pages" were found worthy of inclusion. Out of 483,000, that means just 3.7% were even broadly and potentially relevant. Around 80% of that is CIJA, same or worse likely applying across the remained of its larger collection - a claimed 800,000 pages, presumably at least 96% will be totally irrelevant (more like 29-30,000 "relevant" pages).

18,000 may have still seemed too many to analyze, so a solid sampling of about one in four documents was selected at random, with a randomization process described and sounding plausible (I'm no expert). They were apparently aiming for no less than 5,000 pages, and a multi-page document left it at exactly 5,003. FWIW this sample set includes a disproportionate share of SJAC files: 927 or 19% of their total, vs. 4,076 from CIJA (less than 1% of their collection).

Finally, some folder-mixing made it so some relevant documents were filtered out and irrelevant ones filtered in (unclear if that was a random or a "convenient" error). Considering how selection was randomized, the proportion should be 31% still irrelevant: 3,470 of the 5,003 wound up possibly mattering. (applied to the 18,000 files, we might expect ~12,400 "relevant" ones)

So these 3,470 pages should be representative of all "relevant" documents, about one in four (28%). And of those 3,470, they found only 848 "high priority" pages; just 24% wound up "relevant" enough as to include "names of specific detained individual(s)," or to give insights on the government's military strategy, OR to contain "information about the state’s involvement in violations of international law."

Finally just 214 of those 848 pages included the main thing everyone's been looking for, and acting like they've found in droves - "a confession to a possible violation" like, for example, direct orders for a criminal act. We all "know" there should be a lot of these. But only about 6% of the relevant sample set included such, even with "violation" defined broadly and "confession" set to include orders to cease activities that authorities never ordered in the first place.

214 out of 483,000 touted files means = 0.04% wound up arguably proving something criminal. From there, the quality of argument is what narrows the proven criminality down further, to what I presume is very near 0. I'd guess 0.002% or less (that's maybe 16 pages with actually illegal orders, in a total body of 800,000). And I would guess somewhere between 0 and 3 of those 16 would support any of the more extreme allegations we've heard over and over.

How SJAC got its files
As we've seen, it's not so much the documents as it is things you heard and believed somewhere else - plus the documents, blended together however works. Not that important here but interesting anyway is "SJAC’s documentation extraction process" as described in the report:

"To secure documents, SJAC’s Documentation Team members inside Syria entered abandoned government facilities" and recovered files, on just two big occasions: once was in Tabqa and Raqqa in 2013, after the area's conquest by the Al-Nusra-led Islamist coalition, and presumably prior to ISIS taking it over from them. Following the Turkish-backed offensive, "the Turkish-Syrian border was relatively unrestricted, and the Documentation Team members were able to leave Syria and transfer the physical documents to Turkey without hindrance." Then in Spring of 2015, Al-Nusra-led Islamists again overran most of Idlib province, again with Turkish assistance, and some more secret files were carelessly "abandoned" and shuffled over to Turkey by the SJAC's activists with no hassle.

So while SJAC claims independence and opposition to terrorism, they do move freely between terrorist-held areas and the Turkish border, and it almost seems like they operate nowhere else. The SJAC apparently enjoys Turkish state support, yet seems very supportive of Kurdish cultural rights, focusing heavily on that in this report, in lieu of anything sectarian against the Sunni Arab majority they could locate. Kurdish separatism is an issue all regional states have to deal with, and where Turkey and its proxies (SJAC?) have no room to preach about "repression" by others. So this line of criticism seems a bit hypocritical, besides being the best they could find.