The PYD administration prevents merchants from opening their shops in the Qamishlo market center

Yekiti Media

The administration of the Democratic Union Party prevented shop owners in the market center of the city of Qamishlo from opening their shops, under penalty of threat, and opening the shops is conditional on paying hundreds of thousands of sums of money.

A source from the Qamishlo market reported that members of the Qamishlo municipality, backed by the Asayish affiliated with the PYD, prevented the owners of shops in the Al-Salam complex in the center of the Qamishlo market from opening their shops without paying a royalty under the name of “lease and rental tax,” because the shops’ floors belong to the regime’s municipality.

The source, who refused to be named, added that the ban aroused the anger and resentment of shop owners who closed the highway and staged a sit-in, which created a kind of verbal exchange between them and the municipality and Asayish employees. Because the markets are coming to Eid al-Adha.”

The source indicated that the imposed amounts ranged between 200 thousand Syrian pounds and 300,000 SP, and it remains according to the shop owner’s proximity to the PYD and its management, and according to the mood of the employee who imposes the royalty.

The source added, “The reason for our refusal to pay these amounts is because the PYD administration does not have identification papers related to these stores, and is unable to conduct any legal transaction related to the stores, and even unable to transfer the ownership of the store when buying and selling, nor does it provide any kind of Bank support or compensation if the store is subjected to any burning or theft, even to save the shops, just as the system’s taxes are still in effect and its institutions operate as before.”

In the vicinity, the PYD administration is demanding the owners of shops to pay other royalties under various pretexts and names: financial between 500 thousand to 800 thousand SP and a license to practice the profession (offices between 50 thousand and 200 thousand SP) according to the profession, as for goldsmiths’ shops that exceed millions of pounds.

It is reported that the capabilities of the PYD were not limited to supporting the Kurdistan Workers’ Party and the PYD.