Syrian security forces shot three Kurds and injured at least 50 at the beginning of the Kurdish New Year celebrations on 21st March in the town of ar-Raqqa on the north bank of the Euphrates east of Aleppo . This information was provided by the Society for Threatened Peoples STP (Gesellschaft für bedrohte Völker GfbV) on Monday. Reliable sources informed the international human rights organisation that many young people were also injured. The security forces fired machine-gun bursts into the crowd. Since the corpses of those killed are still in the custody of the authorities the names of the victims – among them a 15-year old girl – could not be provided.

A Syrian doctor in the state hospital in ar-Raqqa, who did not wish to be named, reported to a human rights activist whom he knew that the hospital was told on 21st March by the state security service to keep free as many beds as possible. "This is an indication that the attacks on peaceful Kurdish demonstrators had been long since planned”, criticised the STP. There were also reports of attacks on celebrating Kurds from the cities of Damascus , Aleppo , Kamishli and Afrin.

"The suppression of the Kurds has increased steadily since the takeover of power of the young Bashar al-Assad in the year 2000”, reported the chairperson of the German section of the STP, Tilman Zülch. Politically active Kurds are continually being arrested, imprisoned or are disappearing without trace.

In the opinion of the STP it is therefore more than irresponsible for Germany to deport political refugees from Syria , which is under a totalitarian regime. Among these are in the main members of the Kurdish majority and of the Yezidi and Christian communities, who have been living for many years in Germany . "A country which continually shoots down citizens at demonstrations and even religious celebrations and tortures people to death cannot be a partner-country for an agreement on the taking back of refugees. This contract made by the then Federal Minister of the Interior Wolfgang Schäuble with the Syrian Minister of the Interior in 2008 must be rescinded immediately”, demanded Zülch.

Background information

The over two million Syrian Kurds, who live in three regions on the Syrian-Turkish border and form the majority of the population, are today being discriminated. In the course of a massive Arabicisation programme 200,000 of them had their citizenship withdrawn in 1962. Since that time international human rights agencies like the STP have been calling out for their re-naturalisation. This ethnic group is to the present day refused rights of language and culture. The exact number of Kurds being held for political reasons in Syrian prisons is not clear, but estimates suggest that there several hundred. Mishandling and torture are the order of the day. The Society for Threatened Peoples has a list with the names of 590 political prisoners being held in the "Arab Republic of Syria”.

Tilman Zülch will be glad to supply further information at politik@gfbv.de.