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Activist's death galvanizes Kurdish
community in Syria
18.6.2005
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DAMASCUS, Syria -
(KRT) - Sheik Mohammed Khaznawi, one of Syria's most
prominent Kurdish activists, had become so concerned
about the plainclothes intelligence agents who
shadowed his every move that he began to call his
sons every half-hour, just to let them know he
hadn't been arrested.
When he didn't check in on May 10, his sons feared
the worst. They were right.
Three weeks later, Khaznawi's body turned up in a
shallow grave near the Turkish border - bruised,
with broken teeth and a dislodged nose. The
authorities didn't allow an autopsy, so the cause of
death is unknown.
The Syrian government blamed Khaznawi's killing on a
criminal gang, and quickly produced two suspects
whose confessions aired on national television.
But to Syria's 1.7 million Kurds, the country's
largest minority and an important component of the
opposition to President Bashar Assad, Khaznawi's
murder was no whodunit. In massive protests that
Syrian authorities quashed, Kurds accused the
government of silencing one of their most vocal
advocates.
"One of the security reports against him called him
a symbol of unrest that needed to be removed," said
Mourad Khaznawi, the sheik's oldest son. "These
`suspects' are security agents, working for the
government."
Khaznawi's death was the latest spark in the
incendiary relationship between the Syrian
government and the nation's Kurds, who for decades
have been denied political participation and
cultural expression.
Emboldened by the rise of Kurdish leaders in
neighboring Iraq, where the president is Kurdish,
Syrian Kurds say they'll no longer stay silent in
the face of governmental transgressions against
their community.
"The sheik's death made us want to explode," said
Feisal Badr, a Damascus-based leader of the Kurdish
Yekiti party, which operates underground because
it's banned in Syria. "It made us realize how very
deep our oppression is."
A report that the Human Rights Association in Syria
issued in 2003 detailed the "gross denials" of most
basic rights to Kurds, especially the estimated
300,000 who are effectively stateless because the
Syrian government refuses to recognize them as
citizens. The Syrian government puts the number of
stateless Kurds at about 150,000, but there hasn't
been a reliable census in years.
Kurds without Syrian nationality can't vote, travel
outside the country, own property or hold government
jobs. Many are refused treatment in public
hospitals, attorneys and human rights activists say,
forcing them to use expensive private clinics.
Khaznawi had angered the regime by playing host to
foreign diplomats in the mostly Kurdish region of
northeastern Syria. Many here say the sheik's fate
was sealed in February, when he traveled to Belgium
and met with members of the Muslim Brotherhood, the
Islamist party that's the archenemy of the Syrian
regime. He'd been working to bring Islamists and
secular dissidents together for a unified opposition
front.
Fayez al-Sayegh, the editor of the state-run
newspaper Al Thawra, said Kurds were just using the
sheik's death to air their oft-repeated demands and
were ignoring evidence that Islamic militants
targeted Khaznawi because of his tirades against
extremism. One of the sheik's last sermons condemned
suicide bombings as a means of resistance.
"There were confessions. There was evidence. That's
it," al-Sayegh said, displaying the photos his paper
ran of the suspects. "We lost a good sheik, a
peaceful man. He was conveying positive messages
that the government supported."
The Damascus regime, under international scrutiny
and feeling the pressure of Kurdish power in Iraq,
has promised a solution to "the Kurdish problem."
The regime "is scared of the Kurdish movement now,"
said Syrian lawyer Anwar al-Bunni, who represents
110 jailed Kurdish dissidents.
But he and other observers were disappointed this
month when the ruling Baath Party's national
conference ended with no definite measures for
stateless Kurds and no solid plans for expanding
Kurdish rights.
"A certain number of them are going to have the
Syrian nationality, but are we hearing something
specific? No," said Riad al-Daoudi, an adviser to
the foreign affairs minister. "It's a very volatile
situation that could go in any direction."
In a predominantly Kurdish neighborhood of the
Syrian capital, residents said they'd noticed small
improvements to their lives in the past two years.
They're now able to assert their identity with
Kurdish music blaring from car stereos and
Kurdish-language signs on storefronts. And there's
less governmental interference when they celebrate
cultural holidays.
But these small victories are a long way from ending
what they described as four decades of oppression.
"We're foreigners here. I work hard at my studies,
but for what? I'm not going to find a job," said
Hindareen Abdulrahman, 18, a stateless Kurd who
spoke to a reporter even after her mother warned her
not to criticize the government in public. "Look at
Sheik Khaznawi, who was killed for asking for the
rights of the Kurdish people. If he can be
assassinated, what about me?"
SYRIA'S MAKEUP
Syria's population is roughly 16.3 million: 89
percent Arab-Syrian and Aramean-Syrian, 9 percent
Kurds, and 2 percent Armenian and others, including
Jews. Most Kurds live in the Jazira region of
northeast Syria, though there are large Kurdish
communities in the major cities.
Sources: State Department Background Notes, CIA
Factbook, World Almanac, Amnesty International
www.thestate.com
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