300,000 Syrian Kurds "Buried Alive"
 

Abid Aslam

WASHINGTON, D.C., OneWorld US 14.02.06

They went to sleep as Syrians and woke up stripped of their citizenship and their rights to study, work, or marry as they wish.

Such was the fate of 120,000 Syrian Kurds who became people with no country in 1962, when they were purged from the Syrian population in a politically motivated one-day census, the Washington, D.C.-based humanitarian group Refugees International said in a new report Tuesday.

Today, their ranks have swollen to 300,000 and their plight is such that one Syrian Kurdish man interviewed by the group described it as ''like being buried alive.''

The report, ''Buried Alive: Stateless Kurds in Syria,'' urged the government in Damascus to make good on promises to resolve the problem and called on UN, U.S., and European Union officials to keep up pressure on the issue, which it said posed a threat to stability in Syria and the Middle East.

''Syria is denying its Kurdish population numerous fundamental human rights by refusing to address these issues of nationality,'' said Maureen Lynch, research director at Refugees International and the report's author.

''Although President Bashar Al-Assad has said that he wants to resolve this problem, few actions have been taken to reinstate nationality for the Kurdish people in Syria. As a result, stateless Kurds in Syria feel like they have been buried alive,'' she added.

The Kurds disowned in 1962 officially were branded ''foreigners'' but since they enjoyed citizenship nowhere else, they were condemned to statelessness. They have only spotty access to education, health care, and employment--rights enjoyed by other Syrians, the report said. They face difficulty in owning businesses and property.

''Even registering a marriage, traveling outside of the country or changing one's residence is a particular challenge for Syrian Kurds,'' Refugees International said. ''With few options left at their disposal, some stateless Kurds risk death, deportation and imprisonment by attempting to leave the country with false passports, or by paying human smugglers hefty fees.''

Those hardships are faced not only by the generation written off in 1962 but also by their heirs, the group's investigators found on a visit to Syria last October.

''After finishing university, the painful life began,'' said one man described as looking older than his stated age of 43 years.

''We saw our classmates and friends get jobs and buy houses,'' he said. Trained as a lawyer, he was forced to look for other work.

''As a result of our suffering, we wanted to ask for our rights. In many countries, even the animals have identification or a family card, at least a family tree. But people here do not treat stateless persons even as well as Europeans treat their animals,'' he said.

''Now I am 43 years old. I see all my friends who studied with me--doctors, lawyers, engineers, officers, or others who have identity or nationality go outside of the country and bring money back. I, my wife, and children work in a shop moving heavy appliances,'' he added. ''We arrange our life as we have money--maybe twice a month we buy meat.''

Yet, the man was among few stateless Syrian Kurds to attend university. The government recognizes Kurdish children's right to primary education but stateless Kurds face trouble getting into secondary school and college, according to Refugees International.

Stateless Kurds also are barred from government jobs and from practicing law or medicine. They are allowed to work in some, but not all, teaching and engineering jobs. Stateless Kurdish men cannot legally marry Syrian women, according to the report.

Kurds are barred from using their language in conversation, publications, and in the naming of their children. They face interrogation, detention, and torture, according to the report.

All this is the result of a 1962 census officially conducted to identify foreigners said to have crossed the border from Turkey illegally, Refugees International said. In fact, it added, the head-count formed part of a drive to 'Arabize' Syria's resource-rich northeast.

''To retain their citizenship, Kurds had to prove residence in Syria prior to 1945, but many Kurds with proof of residence lost their nationality anyway,'' the organization said.

The issue has haunted Syria and periodically has spilled over into public protest, regional uprisings and, in 2004, major race rioting sparked by a soccer match, according to rights watchdog Amnesty International.

Stateless Kurds have been further emboldened to push for citizenship and recognition as a major group within the country following the creation of a Kurdish autonomous zone in Iraq, Refugees International said.

Last November, Al-Assad publicly reiterated his intention to resolve the issue. A number of Syrian officials have said there is no crisis and that only a handful of Kurdish families live without official citizenship.

The estimated 300,000 stateless Kurds represent a portion of Syria's total Kurdish population. The size of that population--a politically prickly measurement--remains officially undetermined but estimates cited in the report put Kurds at 8-15 percent of Syria's national population of around 18 million people.

Restoring stateless Kurds' citizenship and rights should be a top priority, the document said.

''Only when the stateless Kurds in Syria have been fully nationalized and the broader issue of the Kurdish place in Syrian political, social, and economic life has been addressed can peace and security within Syria be realized,'' it concluded.