The Islamic State defendant had clearly expected to face judgement from a man. So when the petite, high-heeled and unveiled blonde took her place at the front of the courtroom in northeastern Syria, he quickly averted his eyes.

“It’s considered haram in ISIS’s version of Islam to look a strange woman in the eye,” Judge Amina told the Telegraph from her office just off the court, laughing as she recalled the suspect’s discomfort.

“Perhaps it has been years since he saw a woman like me,” said Amina, who asked to be identified only by a first name for her security. “I ordered him three times to look at me, but he refused. He just stared at the ground for the whole trial.”

Amina is one of half a dozen judges sitting at a special terrorism court near the city of Qamishli, in the autonomous Kurdish region of Syria known as Rojava.

The Kurds, which established a breakaway administration in 2013, have built a justice system from scratch based on Rojava's secular, socialist-influenced constitution, without any recognition from the Syrian government or the outside world.