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	<title>FrontPage Magazine &#187; Eric Bruneau</title>
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		<title>Syria&#8217;s War on the Kurds</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2011/eric-bruneau/syrias-war-on-the-kurds/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=syrias-war-on-the-kurds</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2011/eric-bruneau/syrias-war-on-the-kurds/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 12 Jan 2011 04:10:22 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Eric Bruneau]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=81397</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[A new repressive campaign. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/Syria_Kurds_1.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-81401" title="Syria_Kurds_1" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/Syria_Kurds_1.jpg" alt="" width="410" height="267" /></a></p>
<p>Tensions  are increasing in Syria. Despite the efficiency of its internal  security services, President al-Assad&#8217;s Ba’ath regime faces growing  dissent from the Kurds. Although they have been successfully silenced  during decades, a series of events recently attracted the attention of  the outside world to their fate.</p>
<p>There was the case of the thirty-three  Kurdish demonstrators who occupied the Syrian embassy in Brussels in  2005; then there was the spectacular odyssey of the one hundred and twenty-three  Syrian Kurds who landed in Corsica on November 22, 2010, and the controversy  following their handling by the French Government. There has also been  the month-long protest held in front of Cyprus’ interior ministry by one  hundred and fifty or so refugees to obtain status, and a hunger strike  in front of the Danish Parliament in October by Kurds fearing  deportation. Their different experiences &#8211; from court hearings to  trials, from detention centres to shelters, the botched legal actions  from authorities or the evacuations by anti-riot police &#8211; come as profound reflections of the repression they endure in their own country.</p>
<p>During  the last five years or so, the increasing marginalization of Kurds seems  to have become a matter of national security in the eyes of the Syrian  regime. The emergence of an autonomous Kurdish enclave in northern Iraq  is seen with anxiety by the neighbouring countries, themselves entangled  in conflicts with their own Kurdish populations, and Syria feels  threatened by a risk of contagion.</p>
<p>&#8220;Things definitely worsened after  2003,&#8221; confirms M. al-Youssef, an exiled member of the Syrian Kurd Unity  Party (PYKS). &#8220;The Kurds and their political parties are now accused of  being separatists, and so this makes them the prime target of the Arab  nationalim at the core of Ba’ath ideology.&#8221; The Qamishli  massacre in 2004, the countless reports of arbitrary arrests and  brutalities perpetrated by the internal security patrols in the Kurdish  provinces, are many examples of an increased repression.</p>
<p>Are  we witnessing <a href="http://www.hrw.org/en/reports/2009/11/24/group-denial ;  http://library.usip.org/articles/1012172.1076/1.pdf ">a new repressive campaign</a> aimed at the Kurds, along the  lines of the 1962 &#8220;special census,&#8221; or the building of the &#8220;Arab belt&#8221;  along the Turkish border?  Some new dispositions have been adopted recently. The Presidential  Decree no.49, passed on the November 10, 2008, places the al-Hasakah province,  where most of the Kurds are living, under military rule. To buy or sell a  property, a license must now be obtained from the military security  directorate and the political activities department.</p>
<p>According to Kurd  opposition representatives and human rights activists, the procedure is  not applied in the Arab provinces, and has been designed exclusively for  the Kurdish areas. It not only prevents Kurds from establishing  themselves in their native province, but also prevents any kind of  investment and development. The economic breakdown so engineered pushes  Kurds to leave the province, were they are replaced by Arab  colonialists. They will find themselves isolated in Arab-populated parts  of Syria, where their identity will be progressively dissolved.</p>
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