Title: Syria: The Silenced Kurds
Author: HRW
Place of publication: US
Publisher: HRW
Release date: 1996

Kurds are the largest non-Arab ethnic minority in Syria, comprising about 8.5 to 10 percent of the population of 13.8 million. This report documents the situation of stateless Syrian-born Kurds -- 142,465 by the government's count, and well over 200,000 according to Kurdish sources -- who have been arbitrarily denied the right to Syrian nationality in violation of international law. These Kurds, who have no claim to a nationality other than Syrian, are literally trapped in Syria: not only are they treated in a discriminatory fashion in the land of their birth, but also they do not have the option of relocating to another country because they lack passports or other internationally recognized travel documents. This report also examines policies and practices of the Syrian government that violate the right of Kurds in Syria to enjoy their own culture, use their own language, and otherwise exercise freedom of expression, also in violation of international human rights standards. These issues have received little international attention.

In 1962, an exceptional census stripped some 120,000 Syrian Kurds --20 percent of the Syrian Kurdish population -- of their Syrian citizenship. They were left stateless, and with no claim to another nationality. Decree No. 93, issued in August 1962, ordered that a census be carried out in Hasakeh governorate in northeastern Syria for the purpose of identifying alien infiltrators. The stated purpose of this census was to discover how many people had illegally crossed the border from Turkish Kurdistan. Kurds had to prove that they had lived in Syria at least since 1945 or lose any claim to Syrian citizenship. The census was one component of a comprehensive plan to Arabize the resources-rich northeast of Syria, an area with the largest concentration of non-Arabs in the country.

By many accounts, the special census was carried out in an arbitrary manner. 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. This report includes the names of Kuridsh men and women, born in Syria in 1935 or earlier, who lost their citizenship as a result of the census and became foreigners (ajanib, in Arabic) in their own country. According to Syrian lawyers, as a result of the census thousands of people went to sleep as Syrians and woke up to find that they no longer were [citizens].

Since these Syrian Kurds did not -- and do not -- have citizenship in another country, they are stateless as a matter of international law. They have been issued special red identity cards by the Ministry of Interior and, pursuant to discriminatory state policy, are denied many rights which other Syrians enjoy, such as the right to vote, the right to own property, and the right to have marriages legally recognized. They are not entitled to passports and thus cannot exercise the internationally guaranteed right to freedom of movement and to legally leave and return to their own country (Syria). Kurdish sources say that there are now an estimated 200,000 Kurds in Syria who are officially classified as a special category of foreigners. The Syrian government informed Human Rights Watch in July 1996 that the number is 67,465.

The census of thirty-four years ago in Hasakeh governorate has a continuing and ever-widening impact on the lives of Kurds born in towns and villages in northeastern Syria, due to natural population increase. The number of stateless Syrian Kurds has grown since 1962 because the status is inherited by the Syrian-born children of stateless Kurdish fathers. One Kurdish resident of Hasakeh governorate told us that when his father, who was born in Syria, lost his nationality in the 1962 census, he and his three brothers -- all born in Syria -- became foreigners as well. The four brothers have since married, and their thirty-three children, all born in Hasakeh governorate, are not Syrian citizens. In Darbasiyyah, located west of Qamishli, there are approximately 59,000 Kurdish residents in the town and its 200 surrounding villages, according to a well-informed local source. He told us that 20 percent of the Kurdish residents -- some 12,000 people -- are not Syrian citizens although they were born in the country.

Syrian-born Kurds with foreigner identity cards face tremendous difficulties in their everyday lives. They are not permitted to own land, housing or businesses. They cannot be employed at government agencies and state-owned enterprises, and cannot practice as doctors or engineers. They are not eligible for food subsidies or admission to public hospitals. They may not legally marry Syrian citizens; if they do, the marriages are not legally recognized for either the citizen or the foreigner, and both spouses are described as unmarried on their identity cards. Kurds with foreigner status do not have the right to vote in elections or referenda, or run for public office. They are not issued passports or other travel documents, and thus may not legally leave or return to Syria. When you live it, you cannot believe that it is happening to you, one Kurdish foreigner who was born in northeastern Syria in 1952 told Human Rights Watch..

Another group of stateless Syrian-born Kurds -- including a significant but thus-far undocumented number of children -- are in an even more tenuous position than those categorized as foreigners because they are not issued identity cards and are not listed in official population registers. The Arabic word used in Syria to refer to these Kurds is maktoumeen (unregistered, or not appearing in the records), following the terminology that is used to describe them in documents issued by Syrian government ministries.

One of the major objectives of Human Rights Watch in issuing this report is to publicize internationally the existence of the maktoumeen. According to information provided by the Syrian government to Human Rights Watch in July 1996, there are 75,000 stateless Kurds with this classification. Children inherit maktoumeen status from their parents under certain conditions, as explained below. Due to the high birth rate of Kurds, particularly in villages in Hasakeh governorate where families of six or more children are not uncommon, the number of maktoumeen will grow rapidly over the coming years, as children with this status come of age, marry, and have children of their own.

Kurdish children become maktoumeen when one of the following three conditions apply: if they are the children of Syria-born Kurdish foreigners who marry women who are Syrian citizens; if one of their parents is a foreigner and the other maktoum (singular of maktoumeen); or if both parents are maktoumeen. Like Kurdish foreigners in Syria, the children born of these marriages are not issued passports or other documents that can be used to travel abroad and re-enter Syria. State policies with respect to Syrian-born Kurdish children who are maktoumeen contradict the assurances provided by the Syrian government to the U.N. Committee on the Rights of the Child. The government's 1996 report to the committee stated that all children in Syria are treated in nondiscriminatory[1]