Appeal to the UNESCO: Recognition of the Kurdish language in Syria!

On the second anniversary of the bloody crushing of spontaneous demonstrations of Kurdish civilians in Syria (12th March2004) the Society for Threatened Peoples (GfbV) appealed on Friday to the UNESCO for the recognition of the Kurdish language in Syria. "This would be an important sign of the assertion of the cultural rights of this ethnic group, which has been suppressed to the present day” said the General Secretary of the GfbV, Tilman Zülch. "The prohibition of their language and the suppression of their culture are methods which the Syrian regime uses in an attempt to break the identity of the Kurds as an ethnic minority. Kurdish newspapers and magazines are forbidden, journalists and people working in the cultural sphere are arrested. In consequence of the policy of Arabianisation Kurdish place names have been replaced by Arab names.” The GfbV supports with its appeal a campaign by Kurds in Syria to have their language recognised by the UNESCO: Their aim is to ensure that their language can be legally spoken and that it can be used in schools and publications. The GfbV has discovered that 200 Kurds are still in being held for political reasons in Syrian prisons, where they are exposed to systematic torture. 200,000 of the approximately 2.2 million Kurds in Syria have been refused citizenship. The Kurds make up about twelve percent of the approximately 18.4 million inhabitants of Syria. On 12th March 2004 Syrian security forces proceeded against Kurdish fans after a football match between Kurdish and Arab clubs. In the bloody crushing of the following demonstrations throughout the country at least 30 Kurdish civilians were killed, over 1,000 injured and more than 2,500 arrested.