Title: Syria: Scars Etched on Memory
Publisher: Syrians for Truth and Justice (STJ)
Release date: 2019

The events which the city of al-Qamishli/Qamishlou witnessed in March 2004 were a turning point, as they reshaped the relationship between the Syrian Kurds and the Syrian authorities, for the Kurds have unfailingly suffered from marginalization, discrimination and alienation at the hands of the successive governments which held the reins of power in Syria. It was the first time that such large-scale protests be organized by the Kurds; both the intensity and the momentum of which bothered the Syrian authorities that, for their part, answered with excessive repression. Casualties, as most recent records indicate, amounted to no less than 36 dead persons, mostly Kurds, and the injury of more than 160 others, in addition to the security services’ arrest of more than 2,000 Kurds (most of whom were pardoned later on), the torture and the maltreatment of whom was documented by several reports.

On Friday, March 12, 2004, the events in the city of al-Qamishli/Qamishlou, al-Hasakah province, kicked off, spurred by immediate clashes between the fans of the Deir Ez-Zor-based al-Foutoua team and those cheering for the local team of al-Jihad on a football match during the Syrian League, stones and edged weapons were used. The armed friction necessitated that the Syrian police forces and security services intervene, which shot at the angry fans with live bullets, especially the Kurdish ones, gunning down no less than six persons. The next day, on March 13, 2004, the event swirled into massive and wrathful protests, swiping over many Kurd-populated cities and areas throughout Syria, especially in al-Qamishli/Qamishlou, Amuda, Ad Darbasiyah, Sari Kani/Ras, Kobane/Ayn al-Arab, Afrin and the Kurdish neighborhoods in Aleppo city — Ashrafieh and Sheikh Maqsoud, and the ones in Damascus, including Wadi al-Mashari and the al-Madinah al-Jamiea/the University City, in addition to Terbeh Sbiyeh/al-Qahtaniyah and Dêrik/al-Malikiyah among others. The fight and the protests that ensued were later on called the al- Qamishli Events or the Qamishlou Uprising, during which several people fell dead, dozens were injured and hundreds were arrested.

What aggravated the situation further was some sides to the authorities’ relaxed attitude towards shooting unarmed citizens in other places, followed by the arbitrary arrests of hundreds of Kurdish youths and a months-long siege, the acuteness of which lessened after the first few days from the stadium’s incident, imposed on the neighborhoods and towns incubating a Kurdish majority. Worse yet were the news reporting that Arab villages and tribes, adjacent to the Kurdish villages, were being armed, which were also to be deployed in repressive activities and catalyzing terror.

Contrary to the news, which spread over the first few days, reporting that children were trampled to death following the clashes at the football pitch, the incidents have, later on, been proven as untrue even though protestors where shot at on the match’s day and the days that followed.

Analysis, addressing the long-term reasons for the events, varied; however, many of them, at the time, pointed out that the protests, in one way or another, were tightly linked to the ongoing war in the neighboring country, Iraq, for offsetting Saddam Hussein’s regime in Iraq in April 2003 has given rise to Deir ez-Zor tribes and the Arab political powers’ feelings of severe indignation concerning the policies of the Kurdish parties in Iraq, which turned into resentment of the Kurds in Syria, the majority of whom are based in the al-Hasakah province, the city of al-Qamishli in particular.[1]