Foreigners in their own land: Kurds in Syria
 

Perveen Ali and Pary Karadaghi

WASHINGTON,iht.com 16.02.06

Syria is at a critical crossroads, faced with the growing disenfranchisement and discontent of its nearly 300,000 stateless Kurds. By officially recognizing their nationality rights, President Bashar al-Assad can preempt further deterioration in the country's internal stability.

In 1962, a census was conducted in northeastern Syria, ostensibly to identify "alien infiltrators" who had crossed the border from Turkey since 1945, but primarily as one component of a campaign to Arabize this resource-rich region of the country, then primarily populated by non-Arabs.

The census was taken in a blatantly arbitrary manner, resulting in ludicrous situations. Brothers from the same family, born in the same Syrian village, were classified differently. Fathers became foreigners, while their sons remained citizens.

Kurds who had served in the Syrian army lost citizenship, while families who bribed officials kept theirs. The majority of the local Kurdish population, which had been living there for many generations, was simply excluded from the count.

As a consequence, 120,000 Syrian Kurds - 20 percent of the Syrian Kurdish population - were immediately rendered stateless and forcibly displaced to make way for Arab settlements.

They lost their citizenship and became foreigners" ("ajanib" in Arabic) in their own country. Thousands of people went to sleep as Syrians and woke up to find that they no longer were citizens.

Due to natural population growth, the 1962 census has a continuing and ever-widening impact on the lives of Kurds born in northeastern Syria.

The number of stateless Syrian Kurds registered as "foreigners" has grown to 200,000. Since they do not have citizenship in any other country, they are stateless under international law.

While half are issued identity cards stating they are "foreigners," approximately 100,000 have no documents at all and are effectively rendered invisible and subject to abuse at the hands of authorities.

Stateless Kurds face tremendous difficulties in their everyday lives. They are denied many rights, such as the right to vote, own property, have passports, be publicly employed and practice certain professions.

They are not eligible for food subsidies or admission to public hospitals. They are particularly incensed by inhumane restrictions placed on their right to marry.
Many stateless men and women who marry are deemed single by the state, and as a consequence are prevented from registering their children, much less sharing a room in a hotel.

Prohibitions on employment have resulted in a majority of stateless Kurds working in the informal sector or practicing professions without a license. One can find a doctor selling tea on the street or a teacher transporting flour sacks.

Child labor is common, and youngsters can look forward to picking cotton, selling cigarettes and shining shoes. A trained lawyer who works as a laborer summed up the severity of the situation: "Being a stateless Kurd in Syria is like being buried alive."

With so few options for basic survival, stateless Kurds seek opportunities abroad, taking tremendous risks to leave Syria by entrusting their safety to human smugglers and paying $3,000 to $12,000 to crime rings, believing that the hardship of living illegally in other countries would be preferable to the hopelessness of their situation in Syria.

Syria and the international community must address both the situation of stateless Kurds and the larger Kurdish question in Syria. The UN High Commissioner for Refugees should continue to work with the Syrian government to resolve this problem. The EU has already set an example for other concerned governments by actively pressuring Syria to reinstate nationality to the Kurds.

(Perveen Ali works with Refugees International, an advocacy organization based in Washington. Pary Karadaghi is with Kurdish Human Rights Watch in Fairfax, Virginia.)