|
Kurdish
students living in Iraq’s neighbours are flocking to
universities in the Kurdish areas to escape
repression at home and to benefit from the
opportunities they say the region offers.
The University of Sulaimaniyah alone has so far
accepted more than 110 Kurdish students from
neighbouring countries, mainly Iran and Syria, under
a programme that reserves five per cent of all
places at Iraqi Kurdish universities for high school
graduates educated elsewhere.
The foreign students receive free tuition and
accommodation and a 100 US dollar allowance each
term.
Thirty-year old Farzeen, a first year student at
Sulaimaniyah’s media college from the Iranian town
of Saqiz, said education in Iran is expensive in
Iran and freedom of speech limited. “You can’t
express any political beliefs or air your views
freely or you end up in jail, especially if you are
a Kurd,” said Farzeen.
Bayan, an Iranian Kurd who agreed to talk to IWPR on
the condition her full name would not be used so as
to protect her family, said she came to Sulaimaniyah
after facing discrimination at home.
“I got high marks in high school, but my university
place went to the daughter of a member of the Basij,
the paramilitary reservists. There was no point in
complaining,” Bayan said, adding although she was
accepted by a private art college in Tehran she
couldn’t afford the 800 dollar tuition fees.
Mnar Nisi was in the fourth year of a philosophy
degree at Damascus University when he chose to leave
Syria for political reasons, despite the fact no
Iraqi Kurdistan universities offer courses in
philosophy
“So now I’m back in first year, studying political
science,” said Nisi.
Despite this, he has no complaints. “Syria has been
mistreating Kurdish students for years. We’re just
lucky there is a place that accepts us, and we can
continue studying.”
In the university’s cafe, Muhammed Hamo, a first
year student in at the media college, sits with two
friends, one a Kurd from Iran, the other a native of
Sulaimaniyah.
Hamo is one of several Syrian Kurds who fled
Damascus after protesting at the authorities’
violent suppression of a Kurdish uprising in the
towns of Qamishli and Hasaka in March 2004.
He and some 500 other Kurdish students were arrested
after police broke up a peaceful demonstration at
Damascus University organized earlier this year to
protest the deaths in Qamishli. He was initially
hospitalised after being beaten by the police, then,
following his discharge, was arrested and spent
three weeks in prison.
As soon as he was released, Hamo fled to Iraq.
“I cannot fully describe the injustice and violence
perpetrated by the Syrian Baathist Party against the
Kurds,” said Hamo. “Here we are free. The government
is Kurdish, and we study in Kurdish.”
Jawidan, a fifth year medical student at Damascus
University, didn’t get off so lightly. He says that
following the demonstration he was arrested and
tortured by Syrian intelligence, then held
imprisoned for 50 days.
“They threatened to expel me and said we were
criminals for betraying Syria and the Arabs,” he
said.
Syria’s Kurdish political parties tried to send
Jawidan and several other students to Iraq or other
foreign countries to escape the violence and finish
their education. But after two students were
arrested applying for passports, the remainder fled
illegally across the border into Iraq.
Salahaddin University in the Iraqi Kurdistan capital
of Erbil has already accepted 120 Syrian Kurds.
Though it has also taken in numerous Kurdish
students from Iran, of the 600 applications it
received this year, the university could only find a
place for 70.
Not surprisingly, demand for university places from
Kurdish students living outside Iraq look set to
continue growing. “I want to study in Kurdish, to
live freely as a Kurd and stay here,” said one
Iranian student.
http://www.keralanext.com
Top |
® 