Acceleration of the fight by oppressed Kurds, one of the unintended consequences of the U.S.-led imperialist invasion of Iraq, is having widespread effect in the Middle East. The governments in Syria, Iraq, Iran, Turkey, and Armenia fear that the advances made by Kurds in Iraq will spur struggles for self-determination among their Kurdish populations. About 25 million Kurds live in a contiguous territory historically known as Kurdistan that spans those countries. An estimated 1.5 million Kurds live in Syria.

Syrian police used tear gas to break up a June protest, Reuters reported, organized by two banned Kurdish parties following the death of Khaznawi, an outspoken advocate for Kurdish rights. He had disappeared in mid-May and his body later turned up in a shallow grave near the Turkish border, showing signs of torture—bruises, broken teeth, and a dislodged nose.

Syrian authorities blamed Khaznawi’s death on a criminal gang but refused to allow an autopsy, according to Knight Ridder News. Amnesty International disputed the government’s account, charging that the Muslim cleric was at least the sixth Syrian Kurd to have died as a result of torture and ill-treatment since March 2004. The government televised the confessions of two of the five men arrested in the death.

Hundreds rallied outside the state security court in Damascus in May to protest ongoing trials of some 100 Kurds arrested over the last year. They chanted in Arabic and Kurdish “Long live liberty” and “End the emergency laws,” reported Al-Jazeera. In June the court sentenced three members of the Kurdistan Workers Party to 30 months in jail for advocating independence for the Kurdish-populated regions of Syria.

Repression of the Syrian Kurds intensified with a census conducted in 1962 by the ruling Baath party that stripped 120,000 Kurds of citizenship overnight. Their offspring were classified as foreigners or maktoumeen, swelling the population of dispossessed to as many as 250,000 today. Damascus settled thousands of Arabs on land confiscated from Kurds living near the border with Turkey. The settlers were also given better facilities, such as schools and clinics. This was a similar policy to the “Arabization” campaign carried out by Saddam Hussein’s Baathist regime in Iraq that brought tens of thousands of Arabs into Kirkuk to take the place of Kurds driven from the region, in order to ensure control over the city’s vast oil reserves.

About 160,000 Kurds are denied Syrian citizenship—meaning they cannot vote, own property, go to state-run schools, or work government jobs. They carry special red identity cards that label them as “foreigners.” Another 75,000 Kurds are not recognized at all and have no identity cards. They cannot even be treated in state hospitals or obtain marriage certificates.

Under pressure from a growing movement of Kurds demanding recognition and representation in the government, the ruling Baath party hinted that it would adopt measures to resolve the status of “stateless Kurds.” But the party’s 10th congress ended without taking meaningful steps regarding the Kurds. “There is a kind of anxiety and restlessness now. We are disappointed with all the unqualified promises,” Hassan Salih, a leader of the Yekiti Kurdish party based in Qamishli—a center of protests—told the New York Times.  
 
 
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