Written Statement – Item 6 of the provisional agenda

Racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and all forms of discrimination in Syria

The Society for Threatened Peoples is concerned about the situation of Kurds in Syria. Although Syria’s Constitution grants equal opportunities for all ethnic and religious groups, Kurds are persecuted and discriminated against because of their ethnicity. Minority issues continue to be some of the infamous „red lines”, the litany of forbidden topics that have not been openly discussed in Syria. Human rights defenders and human rights activists also suffer from persecution.

The Kurds, 10% of the Syrian population, are Syria’s largest minority. More than 150.000 members of this group are denied citizenship. They are not allowed to use Kurdish names. The government of Syria holds on to policies of arabisation. Political parties are forbidden. In recent years, stimulated by the new and successfull role of Kurds in Iraq, the Kurds of Syria have become more active in the political opposition. The response of the regime in Damascus has always been the same: supported by the ever present security services, police and army it strives to suppress any Kurdish political initiatives and does not shy away from using violence. The following examples demonstrate that the human and civil rights of the Kurdish part of Syria’s population continue to be systematically violated.

On May 10th 2005, the Kurdish religious leader Sheik Mashuk Al Khznawi was kidnapped by strangers and found dead on May 30th. Human rights experts and the family of the victim claim that he was murdered by the Syrian secret service. In the wake of his murder, Kurds organised peaceful protest marches that were violently broken up by the Syrian security service. An unknown number of Kurds was arrested.

On September 15th , Syrian police forces attempted to expel Kurds from their homes in the village of Dismass, 25km northwest of Damascus. They claimed the Kurds had no legal right to live in their houses. The families, who were now homeless, organised peaceful protests against the dispossession of their homes. The officers of the local administration and the police responded by beating the Kurdish families. An elderly woman, Shaha Remo, was beaten so severely that she later died from injuries to her head. She had nine children.

On October 5th, Kurds in Syria held a peaceful protest march in remembrance of the population census of 1963 when 120.000 Kurds lost their citizenship. Ever since that day in the 1960s Kurdish families have been deprived of their civil rights. The Syrian authorities started beating the protesters and broke up the demonstration.

Three Kurdish teachers were discriminated against in the region of Qamishli in the fall of 2005. One of the teachers, Mr. Adnan Bashir was arrested on Oct. 16th simply because he took part in a conference in Kurdistan Iraq. Even though he was released 5 days later, the Syrian security forces threatened to detain him once again and suspend him from his job. Mr. Ibrahim Ali Jusef and Mr. Chalid Mohammed, both professors of Arabic literature in Qamishli, had already been suspended and transferred to Hasakej.

On November 17th Mr. Nasraldin Ahma was arrested in the town of Qamishli. He is reportedly being held incommunicado at the State Security Detention Branch in the Kafr Sousa area of the capital, Damascus. Mr. Ahma is at risk of being tortured. He was at his workplace when he was overpowered by 15 armed members of the Syrian security forces and forced into car that took him away..

On 18 November, two Syrian intelligence service officers questioned Nasraldin Ahma’s seven-year-old son, telling him that they were friends of his father. The officers showed the boy photographs and asked him if he could identify the people in the pictures.

Nasraldin Ahma is a founding member and director of the Qamishli Group for Kurdish Tradition, which supports Kurdish culture and traditions. Syrian Kurds are forbidden to speak their mother tongue and engage in cultural practices. The Qamishli Group for Kurdish Tradition organises cultural events, and its members have also participated in demonstrations for the acceptance of Kurdish traditions in Syria. He was released in the night of January 21st to 22nd after having been subjected to severe torture in prison

The EU is in regular contact with the government of Syria. An association agreement with Syria is being discussed. The rights of the Kurds in Syria are still violated as the above mentioned events demonstrate. Even though the EU representatives claim to address the human rights situation with their interlocutors, the living conditions of the Kurds in Syria have not improved. Consequently, the Society for Threatened Peoples asks you take the following steps during this year’s UN Human Rights Commission in Geneva:

Society for Threatened Peoples calls on the Commission to:

• monitor the human rights situation in Syria, esp. the situation of the Kurds,

• send the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture to Syria in order to investigate the situation of prisoners in Syrian detention centres,

• inform the Working group on arbitrary detentions about individual cases of detention of Kurdish political or cultural activists,

• condemn the ongoing persecution of Kurds in Syria,

• appeal to the government of Syria to put an end to torture and the inhuman and degrading treatment inmates in Syrian prisons,

• urge the government of Syria to guarantee fair trial for all prisoners, esp. for prisoners of conscience,

• appeal to the EU member states, who are in close contact with Syria in connection with the EU-Syria Association Agreement, to address the issue of human rights and minority rights during negotiations.