Al-Raqqah | As bread price ups, general strike and popular protests hit Turkish-controlled areas

Syrian Observatory activists have monitored a popular general strike in the areas of Tal Abyad and Sluk, which are under the control of Turkish forces and factions of “Peace Spring” in northern Al-Raqqah.

 

Civilians have closed their shops, while tens of them have gathered in front of the civil councils, protesting the deteriorating living condition and the increase of bread price.

 

On June 15, SOHR activists said that dozens of residents participated in a demonstration in the villages of Bab al-Khair, Jan Tamer and Um Ushbeh in western rural Ras al-Ain in the areas of “Peace Spring”, protesting the practices of Turkish-backed factions, such as assaulting civilians, looting and burning agricultural crops.

 

Meanwhile, factions’ members opened fire on demonstrators to disperse them, injuring two.

 

Turkish-backed factions continued their violations against the people in the “Peace Spring” areas, as the factions’ members were collecting zakat from farmers and looting the harvest from those residents who did not have official proof of land ownership.

 

Moreover, Turkish-backed factions confiscated 15 tons of wheat in the village of Jaradi in Ras al-Ain countryside, belonging to a peasant in charge of his dead father’s land on behalf of his bothers.

 

The factions asked each farmer who harvested his crops to pay the “zakat”, and threatened to confiscate the entire harvest and arrest the land’s owner, if he refused to perform this “due”.