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- SOCIETY FOR
THREATENED PEOPLES
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- PRESS INFORMATION
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- GÖTTINGERN, 31.10.2008
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- Kurds in Syria
demonstrate against presidential decree: Property in border areas must
not be confiscated!
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- In Syria this coming Sunday a large demonstration
is to take place in front of the Parliament buildings. Kurds are
protesting against the planned effective dispossession of property in
border areas. The Society for Threatened Peoples (GfbV) fears that the
regime will take particularly severe measures against Kurdish democrats
and for this reason has called on all ambassadors of the EU states
residing in the Syrian capital to pay especial attention to the peaceful
defenders of human rights
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- Seven Kurdish parties and organisations have
organised the demonstration to protest against the presidential decree
No.49 of 10.09.2008. The decree questions principally the right of
Syrian citizens to hold property in the border areas of the country.
There are to be with immediate effect no more entries in the land
register. If this decree is complied with completely property can no
longer be bought or sold, nor can it be bequeathed to the legal heirs.
Those most affected are the Kurdish and the Assyrian Aramaic ethnic
groups in the three governorates (Muhafazat) on the Turkish-Syrian
border, Hasaka, Ar-Raqah and Aleppo. The region lying on the long
Syrian-Iraqi and Syrian-Jordanian border consists of semi-desert and is
sparsely populated.
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- The GfbV fears that the long-term policy of
dispossession by Syria will force the Kurds and other minorities to a
rural exodus. The government in Damascus began in the 60s already the
implementation of rigorous measures against the Kurdish minority. Many
land-owners alongside the borders of Syria with Turkey and Iraq were
dispossessed at that time for the creation of the so-called Arab belt,
15 km wide and 350 km long. Thousands of farmers and their children were
forced to scrape by as taxi-drivers, refuse-collectors ands unskilled
workers - if they managed to find jobs at all. Now this policy is to be
continued.
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- Meanwhile the Syrian authorities are proceeding
with undiminished severity against Kurdish and Arab human rights
workers, reported the GfbV. Two members of the Kurdish AZADI Party in
the north of Syria, Muhammed Said and Saun Shekho, were arrested on 26th
October 2008. On Wednesday twelve Syrian politicians of the so-called
“Damascus Declaration” were sentenced to terms of imprisonment just
because they publicly criticised the policies of the government and
called for democratic reforms. The Syrian Kurdish human rights worker
and contact person of the GfbV, Mashal Tako, is still in custody.
Approximately 150 Kurds are at present being held in custody as
political prisoners. The names of 97 are known to the GfbV.
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- For further information please contact the GfbV
Near-east consultant, Dr. Kamal Sido at tel. 0049 (0)173 67 33 980.
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