Asayish Forces Wrest Control of a Health Center in Al Hasakah

Asayish security forces of The Autonomous Administration captured a pro-government health center in Ghuweiran neighborhood in Al Hasakah city, threatening to arrest its staff members if they didn’t evacuate it, as a witness reported to STJ.

A worker[1] at the health center told STJ in October 25, 2018:

"At 11:00 a.m. on Wednesday, October 24, 2018, seven members of the internal security forces of The Autonomous Administration known as "Asayish" entered the dispensary in Ghuweiran neighborhood and had a meeting with the director of the health center in his office for half an hour, during which they ordered him to leave his job along with all staff members and to evacuate the center in one hour because it was thus entirely under the Auto-Administration. The director said that he told the government Health Directorate in Al Hasakah what happened and they warned him not to handover the center to Asayish and just to close it until the issue is settled. However, one hour later 10 Asayish militias, arrived at the center in three vehicles and ordered us to leave immediately or we will be arrested otherwise, so we collected the work’s important documents and left the center. The director in his turn surrendered the keys of the building to the Asayish forces."

The same worker added that the next day, on October 25, 2018, he was informed by the director, to attend the 'New health center' located within the so called “security square”.

STJ’s field researcher reported a massive deployment of the security forces in Ghuweiran district after the incident, on Thursday, October 25, 2018, which prevented him from getting to the health center.

For the other health centers in Al Nashwa and Tell Hajar neighborhood, their directors received orders from the government Health Directorate to never evacuate them or take any other action, in case they got seized or raided, without reporting it first, according to workers[2] there, who spoke to STJ on October 25, 2018.

Local media[3] quoted field sources who stated that Asayish forces captured the three abovementioned health centers and seized all their equipment. The Asayish also installed new signs on those centers saying their affiliations to the Auto-Administration.

The same local media quoted Abeer Hassaf, the joint head of the Health Authority of The Auto-Administration, having said that the centers’ cadres have never been expelled, but they were withdrawn by the Syrian government.

It's noteworthy that Al Hasakah city is jointly controlled by the Syrian government and the Kurdish Auto-Administration, which had earlier closed many schools in its areas for teaching the state curriculum[4].