Human Rights Day – Highlighting Syrian Observatory founder and director Rami Abdurrahman

REUTERS: With only a few hours sleep, a phone glued to his ear and another two ringing, the fast-talking director of arguably Syria’s most high-profile human rights group is a very busy man.

“Are there clashes? How did he die? Ah, he was shot,” said Rami Abdulrahman into a phone, the talk of gunfire and death incongruous with his two bedroom terraced home in Coventry, from where he runs the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. Read more

You can now help – the people of Wan and Erdis – from anywhere in the world!

by Kani Xulam on Wednesday, 26 October 2011
Dear Friends,
We finally have a secure method to collect funds for the “Kurdish Earthquake Relief Fund.” You can send donations through your credit / debit cards from anywhere in the world using PayPal.

Any amount is good – we know some of you are students and may not have the means of support.

But you may have well-to-do uncles and aunts that can be reminded of giving in this time of distress.

Thank you in advance for helping the people of Wan and Erdis!

Here is the PayPal link: Http://kurdistan.org/earthquakehelp Read more

IRANIAN KURDS AT RISK OF IMMINENT EXECUTION

AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL: The death sentences against Loghman Moradi and Zaniar Moradi, two members of Iran’s Kurdish minority have been up held by the Supreme Court . They could now be executed at any time.

Rudaw: US: Kurds Were Most ‘Organized and Daring’ Opposition in Syria in 2006

EXETER, the United Kingdom — A 2006 cable from the US embassy in Damascus shows that the US saw the Kurds as the most organized opposition in Syria but was reluctant to push Kurdish rights over concerns it could alienate Syrian civil society groups.

“The most organized and daring political opposition and civil society groups are among the ethnic minority Kurds,” William Roebuck, US charge d’affaires in Damascus, wrote in the December 13, 2006 cable, which was recently published on Wikileaks. Read more

Sign the petition: Twenty Kurdish asylum seekers will be deported next week from Sweden to Iran

Twenty Kurdish asylum seekers will be deported next week from Sweden to Iran, where they face detention, torture and possibly execution, unless you stop it.

With their lives on the line, the asylum seekers — all of whom are documented refugees with the United Nations — have taken the extraordinary step of going on a hunger strike to protest their deportation. Several of them have been hospitalized after collapsing from hunger. Those remaining have sewn their mouths shut.

Carin Zellerman is a Change.org member from New York City. She happened to meet the Kurdish asylum-seekers while she was visiting Stockholm last week, and now she’s working to raise a massive international outcry to make the Swedish Ministry for Migration and Asylum Policy reverse its deportation order and save the asylum seekers. Read more

Monday 10 October 2011

Syrian Uprising 2011 Information Centre: SUMMARY (10/10/2011): At least 3 civilian martyrs are known to have fallen today – but with clashes in Homs and near Jisr ash-Shughur the real figure must be higher. Assad’s supporters spend a lot of time making threats these days – one of the most dramatic was the Grand Mufti threatening to retaliate against any military intervention by the US or Europe with suicide attacks. Meanwhile, Libya’s TNC has become the first to recognise the Syrian National Council as the representatives of the Syrian people. Syria – Monday 10/10/2011

Read more

Democratic Society Movement in Syria opens a school for Kurdish culture, without government consent

Hundreds of Kurds participated in the opening of a school – ‘Munther’ – which is named after a martyr, in the village of Qastl Makhted, in the Afrin area. The school has been created so that children can learn about their Kurdish heritage and culture.

Those attending the opening included members of the Martys Family Association and the Ankezk Cultural Group. Four women whose children died as martyrs cut the ribbon for dignity and freedom for Kurdish people.

Teachers at the school spoke about the importance of having a school with this focus especially at this time, as recognition of Kurdish culture and language is the foundation for democratic self-autonomy. They said this is the first step towards achieving this goal.

Kurdish Studies and language classes at Middle Tennessee State University (MTSU)

At the direction of President McPhee, plans were developed to create a Middle East Center (MEC), which officially came into being in December 2006.  From July 2006 through June 2009 MTSU had a Department of Education Undergraduate International Studies and Foreign Languages grant to initiate language programs in Arabic and Hebrew, develop courses for a new Middle East Studies (MES) minor, support faculty members working in MES, and offer workshops for middle and high school teachers in the region that presented ways to incorporate the study of the Middle East in their curriculum.   Read more

Summary prepared by OHCHR for 12th session UN UPR – SYRIA

United Nations General Assembly
Distr.: General
A/HRC/WG.6/12/SYR/3
25 July 2011
Original: English

Human Rights Council

Working Group on the Universal Periodic Review

Twelfth session

Geneva, 3–14 October 2011

Summary prepared by the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights in accordance with paragraph 15 (c) of the annex to Human Rights Council resolution 5/1 Read more

Support an Independent Kurdish State

epetitions.direct.gov.uk

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