The Kurds of Syria
David McDowall
KHRP
The Syrian claim
'Syrian society is distinguished from all other societies in the world by its tolerance and lack of bigotry.... The phenomenon of racial discrimination is unknown in our history and totally alien to our society.'
(Syrian Government statement)
The Syrian reality
Syria discriminates against its Kurdish minority:
- it is ethnically exclusive, its constitution being based solely on Arab identity even though 15 per cent of the country is non-Arab
- it withholds citizenship from up to 200,000 Kurds who have lived all their lives inside Syria
- it forbids the teaching of the Kurdish language, even privately
- it forbids the production of Kurdish language publications
- it discriminates against Kurds in education and employment opportunities
The Kurds of Syria
- provides an account of Kurdish-Arab relations in Syria during the twentieth century
- describes the current situation of the approximately 1.5 million Kurds of Syria
- describes Syria's discriminatory practices
- explains how these violate international law and in some cases its own domestic law
- recommends the steps necessary for Syria to conform with international law and norms
- With an appendix on the Kurds in Lebanon
This report is produced by the Kurdish Human Rights Project thanks to a generous grant from NOVIB (Netherlands Organization for International Development Cooperation)
David McDowall is a writer and specialist in Middle East affairs with a particular interest in minorities. He is the author of A Modern History of the Kurds (IB Tauris, 1996)
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