What are the priorities?

Concern about increasing abuses of Kurds in Syria

July 27, 2009 by sks

Our particular concern is in regard to the Kurds who have been experiencing continuing, and we would argue increasing human rights abuses whilst living in their historic homelands.

Some examples of the concerns we wish the UK Government and those in Europe would address with the Syrian Government are as follows:

* The Syrian Government is using the law by Decree 49 to decimate the Kurdish building trade and related fields of employment, and therefore to force people out of the Kurdish area to try to find work in Damascus. The objective in addition to persecuting the Kurds is to put Kurds in the intolerable position of having to leave their ancient homelands in order to live, which will allow Arabisation of the area. Syria will manipulate this opportunity to re-enforce their wrongful assertion that Kurds have no historical links to the country.
* The Government has recently been cracking down on the use of Kurdish language, by for example forbidding shop-keepers to have Kurdish signs on their shops.
* The colours red, green and yellow are not allowed in a Kurdish wedding because they come from the Kurdish flag.
* There is no movement towards legitimising stateless Kurds despite the UK Government’s expectations in 2005. The number grow as the next generations of stateless Kurds are born. Very recently we have heard of incidents where a stateless woman was not allowed on the bus.
* Kurds have been warned off holding Newroz parties and the Government has used intimidation to dissuade people from coming out to celebrate their traditional New Year, by – for example – smashing picnic sites and adversely controlling the availability of tents for the parties.
* Kurdish leaders are being regularly detained and intimidated.
* Conscripted Kurds have been killed whilst on duty, by their own Forces[1]

The recent ‘Freedom House’ report gives a top score of ‘7’ to Syria for its lack of political rights and ‘6’ for lack of civil liberties[2].

Other recent reports support the assertion that the situation is deteriorating, whilst at the same time the Syrian authorities are seen as a part of the answer to the Middle East. It is not acceptable to ignore the human rights abuses in return for oppression and repression that may bring an uneasy and hostile peace .

The Sykes-Picot Treaty caused many of the difficulties faced by the Kurds in Syria. Kurds in Syria are asking that we become part of the solution.

Evidences:

Kurdish Yekiti Party in Syria – UK Branch Report for the period to January 2008 – March 2009[3]

We see the international community positioning itself to take advantage of the possibility that Syria can bring some solution to the Middle East tensions, and we are told that human rights abuses are on every agenda, but we know that this is not enough. The Syrian authorities have no intention of making our lives any easier and the events of the past year confirm that he situation is actually becoming worse for Kurds in Syria.

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Amnesty International brings the Human Rights Abuses to the World’s attention[4]:

The state of emergency, in force since 1963, continued to give security forces sweeping powers of arrest and detention. Freedom of expression and association remained strictly controlled. Hundreds of people were arrested and hundreds of others remained imprisoned for political reasons, including prisoners of conscience and others sentenced after unfair trials. Torture and other ill-treatment were committed with impunity; seven deaths as a result were reported. Military Police were reported to have killed at least 17 detainees. Human rights defenders were harassed and persecuted. Members of the Kurdish minority faced discrimination; many were effectively stateless and denied equal access to social and economic rights. Women were subject to discrimination and gender-based violence. Sixteen civilians were killed in a bomb explosion which state media attributed to an armed group.

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The US State Department report refers to human rights abuses[5]:

The government’s respect for human rights worsened, and it continued to commit serious abuses. The government systematically repressed citizens’ abilities to change their government. In a climate of impunity, there were instances of arbitrary or unlawful deprivation of life. Members of the security forces tortured and physically abused prisoners and detainees. Security forces arrested and detained individuals without providing just cause, and lengthy pretrial and incommunicado detention remained a serious problem. Considered common practice since 2006, the government violated citizens’ privacy rights and imposed significant restrictions on freedoms of speech, press, assembly, and association, amid an atmosphere of government corruption. Security services disrupted meetings of human rights organizations and detained activists, organizers, and other regime critics without due process. In addition, throughout the year the government sentenced to prison several high-profile members of the human rights community, especially individuals affiliated with the national council of the Damascus Declaration for Democratic National Change (DDDNC), an umbrella organization bringing together a range of reform-minded opposition groups. Violence and societal discrimination against women continued. The influx of Iraqi refugees, moreover, exacerbated the incidence of sexual exploitation, including of minors. The government discriminated against minorities, particularly the Kurds and the Ahvazis, and severely restricted workers’ rights.

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Human Rights Watch writes[6]:

Syria emerged from its international isolation in 2008, but its human rights record remains very poor. The authorities arrested political and human rights activists, censored websites, detained bloggers, and imposed travel bans. Emergency rule, imposed in 1963, remains in effect and Syria’s multiple security agencies continue to detain people without arrest warrants.

The Supreme State Security Court (SSSC), an exceptional court with almost no procedural guarantees, sentenced 75 people in 2008, mostly Islamists, to long prison terms. Syrian Kurds, the country’s largest ethnic minority, continue to protest their treatment as second-class citizens. Months after military police shot and killed rioting inmates at Sednaya military prison, no information has been disclosed about casualties.

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Hansard 24 June 2009[7]:

As the hon. Member for Aylesbury mentioned, however, over the past year, there has been a worrying deterioration in the human rights situation in Syria. Critics of the Government—those who call for peaceful democratic reform and those who post dissenting comments on internet blogs have been imprisoned—and as much as we might be tempted to go down that path, in this country, I can assure hon. Members that it will never happen. Sadly, however, disappearances, travel bans and arbitrary detention are increasingly common. There are reports of torture during interrogation and deaths in police custody. We continue, however, to call on Syria to implement internationally agreed minimum standards on the prevention of torture.

The Syrian authorities continue to crack down on peaceful forms of expression. In the biggest collective prosecution of Syrian dissidents in the past seven years, the 12 intellectuals and activists forming the Damascus declaration group appeared for sentencing at the criminal court on 29 October 2008. All defendants received two and a half years’ imprisonment for the crimes of damaging

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the dignity of the state and distributing false news—another interesting crime that we could put on the statute book in this country. The defendants pleaded not guilty and have done nothing except peacefully exercise their fundamental rights, as guaranteed by the Syrian constitution and international law.

In recent months, there has also been a significant increase in arrests and harassment of Kurds. Hon. Members would like to make it clear that that is not acceptable. Kurdish rights are still not legitimised within the Syrian constitution. Three Syrian Kurds were killed after security forces opened fire on a demonstration marking Kurdish new year in March 2008. Such behaviour does not serve Syria well; nor does it help to bring peace to a region of extraordinary history and complexity.

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Trafficking in Persons Report, Syria, June 2009 from Department of State, USA[8]

Syria is principally a destination country for women and children trafficked for the purposes of domestic servitude and commercial sexual exploitation. Women from Iraq, Eastern Europe, former Soviet states, Somalia, and Morocco are recruited as cabaret dancers and subsequently forced into prostitution after their employers confiscate their passports and confine them to their work premises. A significant number of women and children in the large Iraqi refugee community in Syria are forced into sexual exploitation by criminal gangs or, in some cases, their families. Some desperate Iraqi families reportedly abandon their girls at the border with the expectation that traffickers on the Syrian side would arrange forged documents for the children and “work” in a nightclub or brothel. Iraqi families arrange for young girls to work in clubs and to be “married,” often multiple times, to men for the sole purpose of prostitution. Some Iraqi women and girls who turn to prostitution out of economic desperation are trafficked back into Syria after they are arrested and deported. Syria is becoming a destination for sex tourism by citizens of other Middle Eastern countries, due in part to the influx of Iraqi women and girls exploited in prostitution. Syria is also a transit country for Iraqi women and girls trafficked to Kuwait, the UAE, and Lebanon for forced prostitution.

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United Kingdom Foreign & Commonwealth Office Annual Report on Human Rights 2008 March 2009 Syria – Introduction[9]

The Syrian government’s human rights record continues to be a cause for concern. The situation for Syria’s Kurdish population has deteriorated significantly. Around 4,000 political prisoners, many of them members of the banned Muslim Brotherhood and the Communist Party, remain imprisoned in Syria. The Emergency Law, imposed in 1963, severely restricts basic rights. Public calls for its repeal by Syrian reformers have not been heeded. The Foreign Secretary raised human rights during his visit to Syria in November.

[1] http://www.yekiti-party.org/en/archive.php?subaction=showfull&id=1241996006&archive=1243809144&start_from=&ucat=1&

[2] (Freedom House ‘Worst of the Worst – the world’s most repressive societies report 2009?, 2009)

[3] http://www.kurdmedia.com/article.aspx?id=15648

[4] An extract from the full Amnesty International Annual Report 2009 which is available from Amnesty International, 1 Easton Street, London WC1X 0DW, United Kingdom or http://www.amnesty.org/

[5] 2008 Human Rights Report: Syria, BUREAU OF DEMOCRACY, HUMAN RIGHTS, AND LABOR 2008 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices, February 25, 2009

[6] January 14, 2009 HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH WORLD REPORT 2009 EVENTS OF 2008 Syria

[7] http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200809/cmhansrd/cm090624/halltext/90624h0004.htm

[8] http://www.state.gov/g/tip/rls/tiprpt/2009/index.htm

[9] http://www.fco.gov.uk/resources/en/pdf/pdf15/human-rights-2008]